


Catch On and Hold Tight

by DarkBlue



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Look I said it would hurt (and then comfort), M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Prostate Massage, Rimming, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25596160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkBlue/pseuds/DarkBlue
Summary: The Iron Bull catches a slipping Dorian, and Dorian repays the favor. They keep score of who is catching the other as their relationship deepens from strangers, to acquaintances, to friends, to more.
Relationships: Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 119
Kudos: 201





	1. Small Grove Camp, the Storm Coast

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote another fic and it's been delayed in coming out so out of pure craze for these two I wrote the first six chapters all in one day. This is the first time in years I've decided to post a chaptered fic because I usually post long monstrosities as one shots. However, we'll try something new!

Dorian glanced sidelong at the big qunari as he walked. He was certainly well-muscled. He wasn’t even winded, meaning that Dorian was practically holding his breath trying to get to the top of this accursed hill to find something for Blackwall. It was stupidly steep and even though they had tried to point out to Trevelyan there _had_ to be another way around, like any noble-born she had agreed sweetly and continued on her pig-headed path. Dorian was _this_ close to screaming, and his lungs were bursting. But damn it if he would let that qunari get the satisfaction of hearing him wheeze.

“I could just throw you up,” the mercenary captain offered when Trevelyan scudded down the slope on her hands and ankles, cursing as she scraped them.

“Maybe,” she muttered sourly, and Dorian said nothing. Usually he would have teased her, but he could read her moods fairly well now. They were both in know of The Game, of course, and everything about her was telling everyone else in the party to _fuck off_.

Blackwall was standing still, glancing up the steep rocky outcropping with a despair in his eyes that almost made Dorian feel sorry for him. But Dorian wasn’t used to feeling sorry for other people. Especially not a man whose last bath surely had to have been the previous decade and lived in a barn. Honestly, people in the South had _no_ standards. He had heard some horror stories about Fereldan, and by all of Vivienne's accounts he had been lucky to miss Haven, where the “great hall” had been nothing more than a glorified barn, straw and all.

“Fine!” she snapped as she skidded past Dorian a sixth time. “You’d better throw me up.”

The Iron Bull smiled, a white beaming thing full of teeth, and picked up the Inquisitor as easily as a hay bale by her belt and her vest. No noble – even a minor noble – would do anything so undignified as yelp when being manhandled, and Dorian felt something in his stomach flutter as he watched Bull’s smile widen in approval. _Not now_ , he told his stomach, which shriveled up in response.

There was a first heave, and a rock back. A second, and Trevelyan braced her hands. A third, and the Iron Bull threw her with prodigious strength towards the top of the outcropping. Trevelyan scrabbled a moment, then with as much dignity as someone wearing skin tight leather over her ass can muster, wriggled spider-like up over the edge.

“Well done,” said Dorian acerbically, before he could stop himself.

“Don’t worry, you’re next,” the Iron Bull promised him, and Dorian only leveled a _look_ at him. He fade-stepped up the slope instead, not quite outdistancing himself from Bull’s hearty laugh as he offered a hand to Trevelyan.

She sighed. “You could do that the whole time? And you let me struggle on like an idiot?”

“Admittedly, it was very funny.”

“Shut up.”

“What are we up here to get?”

“Blackwall – oh, he’s not up here.”

“I think Bull has to throw him up.”

“Can’t you get him? I don’t think his pride will survive that. He might just use his shield as a toboggan and skate down.”

“Sounds like you’ve been thinking about that.”

“Shut up.”

Dorian smoothed his mustache over a smile, and turned back down. “We need Blackwall up here!” he called.

The Grey Warden was attempting to climb the slope with gauntlets on and all, the steel fingers not finding purchase in the smooth stone.

“I got him,” said the Iron Bull.

Blackwall did yelp.

Trevelyan had to turn away, cinching her short ponytail to hide amusement.

With a resounding crash, the Grey Warden - in full plate with a heavy shield to boot - landed half an inch from Dorian’s foot. Dorian glanced down at the mercenary captain, cocking an eyebrow, which he knew would be invisible over the distance.

“You missed,” he called.

That big, gleaming smile again, more like a predatory warning than a friendly grin.

“Well, how’s Bull going to get up here?” Trevelyan asked, stooping to help Blackwall up under one arm. He was trying to shake her off, but like any good noble firmly leading an embarrassing guest or family member away, her grip was fast.

“I’ll make it,” Bull called.

“He’s going to try to run it,” said Dorian faintly, glancing down. “The mad idiot.”

“Dorian!”

“What?”

“Are you just going to stand and watch?”

“Likely, yes.”

“He could fall to his death.”

“He won’t. He’ll just shred his ass as he slides downhill.”

“Dorian!”

“Yes?”

“Go help him.”

“Damn.”

With an aggrieved sigh, Dorian fade-stepped past the blurring form of the Iron Bull as he charged at a mad run up the slope. This also meant Dorian was standing politely as Bull came crashing ass over elbow back down. He wasn’t even crying out, only gritting his teeth, squinting his one good eye as Dorian leaned affectedly on his staff, crossing one wrist over another.

The Iron Bull hit the spell barrier a few feet from Dorian with a resounding note like a bell, a bit of levity that Dorian had thrown in just for kicks. Stunned, the qunari lay motionless before cracking his good eye, staring up at Dorian.

“Thanks,” he managed.

“I see your running bit really had them going for a minute.”

“It could still work.”

“You’re not going to try _again_?” Dorian asked in mock horror. “In that case, I’d best leave the barrier up.”

“I said thanks,” said the Iron Bull grumpily.

Dorian smiled, and the Bull’s eye narrowed.

Dorian was delighted to find another astute player of The Game. So far, it was a limited circle of Josephine, Leliana, Vivienne, and Trevelyan. While he didn’t mind being the only man in the group, it was a little wearying to see how absolutely blind other men were. How refreshing to find it in such an unexpected source, with so little real training. A complete feral, in noble parlance. The feral observer. 

“What are you thinking about?’

The question caught Dorian so off guard that he fell from his affected position and the barrier spell warped a little, the Iron Bull hissing as he tried to sit up.

“Hey! Easy now.”

“Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“You’ve got a smug smile.”

“So they tell me.”

“You’re a smart ass, you know that?”

“You love it.”

Unexpectedly the Iron Bull grinned. “I do.”

Dorian, to his absolute mortification, felt himself blush, which only made the mercenary grin more widely.

“So you can get flustered.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’ve been so cool this whole hike I wasn’t even sure if you were awake.”

“If I could be asleep and leave my body to hike around, I would,” Dorian assured him. “I just spent a lot of time in my head.”

The Iron Bull had regained his feet, and Dorian didn’t want to have to tilt his head up to look at him – he was tall, damn it – but he did.

“Maybe I can help with that,” Bull suggested easily. He turned and started climbing with fingers and toes up the slope as Dorian goggled after him. He surely didn’t mean… no, Dorian had misheard him.

“Give me a boost?” The Iron Bull asked.

“Pardon?”

“A boost?”

“I can’t lift –“

“With magic,” Bull said patiently.

Dorian was getting flustered. He was imagining just how patient the Iron Bull could be. He needed to keep it together. For one thing, Trevelyan and Blackwall were conversing softly together, but still watching their progress. For another, the mercenary captain was a _qunari_ , for Andraste’s sake. Dorian was definitely some sort of deviant in his father’s eyes, but this would be a new low, even for him. If it ever came about he had even _thought_ of –

“Dorian?”

The Iron Bull had never spoken his name before, Dorian was sure of it.

“Yes?” he managed.

“A boost?”

“Damn,” sighed Dorian. “I can’t do it all.”

“I’ll do another running start.”

 _Damn_ , Dorian repeated, but to himself.

He watched as the large qunari launched himself to a dead run from nothing. Watched him gather momentum, watched as a knee gave out, the sudden intake of breath. _That’s your cue, idiot!_ His brain helpfully supplied.

Dorian was never much good at lift. He was much better at force. The way energy worked is that it could be transferred place to place. Dorian was very good at speeding it up or slowing it down, transferring its momentum. But he had never been great at suspending it. It went against his nature to be still.

Vivienne, however, there was a master. He wished she was here, then was immediately glad she wasn’t to watch this slipshod and terrible magic.

He had to guess at Bull’s weight, and by the first sagging of Bull against the stone had undershot the mark. He reevaluated, and Bull suddenly became lighter. He wasn’t _floating_ , exactly, but it was no trouble to guide himself on sticky fingers up the rest of the rock face to the grass at the top, where Trevelyan helpfully pulled him up by the chest harness.

Dorian’s feet were aching. He had rooted all of the extra weight in his own legs, and they hurt with the added strain. At least he had remembered to lift with his legs. Slamming that kind of weight into internal organs or bones could snap them. It was what gave so many magic users a hunched over “crone” appearance. Poor energy management.

As Bull smiled at Trevelyan’s fingers on the leather, Dorian’s stomach dropped. _Oh_. So that was how it was. Anyone then. He wasn’t special.

The sting of it hurt worse than expected. Of course the Iron Bull was completely unsuitable as a romantic partner, but Dorian still had enough vanity to consider himself a catch for anyone. Apparently not.

He tried to fade-step without dissipating all the energy stored in his legs and the spell ran out a few feet from the top. He teetered, his arms pinwheeling in a most undignified manner before he felt a leg go out from under him, stumbling.

 _This will hurt_ , his brain helpfully chimed. Dorian almost rolled his eyes. _No shit._

Without warning he felt a big hand grab the scruff of his robes and haul helpfully forward. Dorian went sprawling onto the grass and felt a sharp pain in his face.

“Dorian! Are you okay?”

Dorian had never felt so undignified or embarrassed. His eyes pricked with the shame of it. Stupid, _stupid_ for not dispelling all the way. An absolute rookie mistake, even if no one else here was a mage. How mortifying.

He rolled over on his back to wheeze and felt hot copper in his mouth. Great.

“Dorian!”

“I’m fine,” he managed dryly. He sat up. His head was splitting. He had wrenched that spell around brutishly trying to save himself and his head was repaying him for it.

“You’ve split your lip.” The mercenary captain was down on one knee. Dorian knew this because he was staring straight at the knee, his head pounding so that it was hard to pay attention to words.

“I’m fine,” Dorian said vaguely.

“Can you follow my finger?”

“Up your ass,” Dorian said just as calmly.

There was a snort of laughter from Blackwall, and Dorian grinned tiredly at the Iron Bull, who wasn’t grinning back, still trying to force Dorian to follow his finger with his eyes.

“You may have a head injury.”

“I don’t.”

“Your head hurts.”

Dorian paused. He wasn’t sure how the qunari knew that.

“Split lip,” he said instead, gesturing with his fingers in a dramatic flourish. “Very fashionable.”

To his utter astonishment and continued slow burning mortification, the qunari took one big thumb and carefully wiped it across Dorian’s chin to better look at the cut.

“From a rock,” the Iron Bull said up over his shoulder. “Can we give him a potion?”

Trevelyan looked uncertain, though anyone without knowledge of The Game wouldn’t have noticed. Her eyes always drew inwards and focused when she was uncertain, as if she were thinking deeply. A very good habit if asked a tricky question in a social setting. Josephine and Leliana were having a field day parading her to court.

“We only have six of these left,” she said slowly. “We used two at the fade rift.”

“And we’re pushing on hard today,” said Dorian cheerfully. “Have to get to the next camp, and it’s a distance.”

Trevelyan nodded apologetically, offering her hand up which Dorian took. He _forced_ himself up, limber and flexible. He refused to sway in place as his head spun and neatly side-stepped the concerned hand of the Iron Bull.

“Thank you,” he said instead, catching the mercenary captain off guard.

“What?”

“For catching me.”

“Oh,” said the Iron Bull, his one light blue eye flicking around Dorian’s face. “You’re welcome.”


	2. The Flooded Caves, Old Crestwood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: you should wait, space out posting your written chapters day by day.  
> also me: PUT THEM ALL UP

“I don’t like this,” said Varric uneasily, shifting in his boots.

“What’s not to like?” asked Trevelyan lightly. “Tromping around underground caverns?”

Dorian glanced sidelong at the pile of decomposing corpses lit by a shaft of sunlight that the Inquisitor had been unflinchingly searching. He could see her hands shake as she put things in her pockets.

Some of the corpses were very small.

Behind Dorian, the Iron Bull grunted, and Dorian felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift. It had only been a few weeks since he had met the big mercenary, but already Bull had a way of taking up the rear guard that made Dorian squirm uncomfortably in his skin. He tried not to show it.

“I’m claustrophobic,” muttered Varric, glancing with trepidation at the unsteady wooden platform leading down into darkness.

“You’re a dwarf,” pointed out Bull.

“Don’t be an ass,” said Varric, but without heart. “I’m a surfacer. _I’m_ not about to fall into the sky. I like the sky. I wish the sky was here.”

Dorian knew by the way Trevelyan shoved her hands in her pockets to hide the trembling that she was forcing herself to be stronger than all of them. It was unnecessary, of course. They all respected her to a fault, but she still stiffened her back with something to prove, especially if the party was all men. Dorian was often invited on the female heavy companies and honestly preferred them. For one thing, Blackwall was never there. For another, it was extremely funny to see Cassandra get flustered as Trevelyan hopelessly tried to flirt with her or Vivienne.

“She’s sweet,” Vivienne said primly when Dorian confronted her on it.

“ _Sweet?”_

“Well, of course we would never.”

“Of course.”

“But she tries.”

“Wrong trees.”

“Pardon?”

“Barking up the wrong trees.”

“Not quite,” said Vivienne with a glacial smile.

Dorian kissed her on the cheek because he knew she hated it, and she glared at him the whole time as he smiled.

Now Trevelyan stepped with two feet onto the wooden platform while the man, the dwarf, and the big qunari flinched in tandem, sure it would collapse. It swayed slightly.

“Boss, I don’t know,” said Bull doubtfully, toeing at the wood. “I’m pretty heavy.”

“It’ll be fine,” said Trevelyan, her mouth set. “We have to find out the truth for…”

They heard it. _For these people_. More these people than the survivors above.

Dejectedly, Varric followed the Inquisitor. The wood beneath his feet groaned, and Dorian glanced at the Iron Bull who held an expansive hand out first.

“Thanks,” said Dorian sarcastically, and Bull grinned at him.

Dorian rolled his eyes as if he didn’t care. At least the awkwardness of strangers had faded. They were polite companions, feeling the territory before them blindly with soft jokes, not yet willing to risk anything truly amusing. False laughs and wary eyes.

When the Iron Bull stepped onto the old woodwork leading down into the flooded caves, Trevelyan, Varric, and Dorian braced themselves. The whole structure swayed, groaning at the nails holding it together. Dorian could feel the wood flexing.

“Why don’t the Inquisitor and Varric step down first?” Dorian called pleasantly.

Trevelyan knew panic wrapped in social politeness when she heard it. She was already moving as fast and as quietly as she was able. Varric was hot on her heels, not _quite_ ramming his forehead into the small of her back to hurry her along.

Dorian looked up at the Iron Bull, who was expressionless and grim in his stoicism.

“Why don’t you walk down to me?”

“It’ll fall.”

“It won’t.”

There was a moment of silence, and Dorian felt this absurd thing stretch between them like some sort of trust exercise before the Iron Bull took the first step. Shaking the structure beneath his feet, the Iron Bull carefully tromped around the encircling ramps to Dorian.

When he reached him, he looked down with an eyebrow raise.

“Keep going,” Dorian said, his voice strained.

The Iron Bull nodded once, as if in confirmation to himself or as a salute to Dorian, and continued past, safely stepping onto the slick rock below before Dorian could make his own legs work enough to stagger down after him.

He hadn’t done any magic. But let Bull think he had.

“Spiders,” muttered Trevelyan under her breath. “Why is it always spiders?”

Trevelyan had a round shield shaped like a wheel of cheese that she used mostly to fling the heavy spider bodies into Bull’s path, a convenient delivery system. When she had first unveiled the shield, she had beamed at the excitement from Sera and disgusted noises from Cassandra.

“The Inquisitor can’t use that,” Vivienne had protested.

Trevelyan had only shrugged. “Why not? You said I needed to be talked about. I'm sure this will be widely gossiped about.”

Vivienne had subsided, seething, which was as close as she ever came to capitulating.

Dorian lamented that his robes were ruined by spider gore long before they found the underground rift.

“This is a damn stupid place to put this,” Varric grouched, echoing Dorian’s own thoughts.

“Or brilliant,” called Trevelyan over the spray of ichor. “No one would ever be mad enough to find it.”

“Except us,” added Bull cheerfully.

The truth of the flooding sobered them all.

“Come on,” said Trevelyan heavily. She stood at the foot of the rickety wooden structure, looking upwards at the faint flickering firelight, not even close to the edge of daylight. “There’s something we have to do.”

“You reckon he’s still around?” asked Bull, skepticism thick in his voice. For once, he had let Dorian take the rear instead of himself, clearly thinking Dorian was bracing the structure. Dorian couldn’t explain to these three that’s not how magic worked. Maybe someone with a true sprezzatura could, that studied carelessness to magic that came with nontraditional learning like Solas had. He might have thought of a way. Dorian only knew the way he had been taught. To brace something he would have to draw a circle spell around its base, solidifying the structure using ambient matter from dust or other particles. In this case, it would likely be nearby bones. He hadn’t wanted to bring that up to Trevelyan. He knew she thought his necromancy distasteful.

“Nah, he’s long gone,” said Varric, bending forward to make the climb easier.

Trevelyan didn’t bother to answer either of them.

Dorian couldn’t open his mouth. He didn’t want to jinx anything, and he was too afraid to let his voice give him away with threaded panic.

A creak.

The party stopped.

The platform beneath them groaned.

“Go!” said Dorian, as if he was doing anything at all.

Trevelyan and Varric bolted up the rest of the ramp. Bull was slower. He was surprisingly quick when he wanted to be, but he wasted precious half seconds turning to look in surprise at Dorian, his brain clearly interpreting the thoughts flitting openly over Dorian's face.

“Go!” Dorian told him again, and Bull went this time. He almost made it, too.

The whole wooden structure began to come apart. Dorian could feel it shaking beneath his feet.

“Dorian!” Trevelyan called, her voice laced with blind panic. “Get out of there!”

So the Inquisitor had made it. That was good. Varric was next to her, leaning over the edge, holding out an arm to Bull as if he wouldn’t be pulled to his death by Bull’s weight.

The platform beneath Bull’s boot was buckling.

 _No_. Dorian thought. Things were moving in slow motion, taking seconds what in reality were milliseconds. He pulled the density from the wood crumbling beneath him, the stone on the floor, even the still-burning torches in iron sconces and slammed it into the platform beneath Bull’s foot.

It steadied, hovering in place against the laws of gravity even as below Dorian the rest of the structure exploded into sawdust. But it was enough. Bull managed to spring off the platform, grab the smooth lip of the rock with both hands, and hang on long enough for a frantic Varric and Trevelyan to pull him up by his shoulder strap.

Dorian realized even as he stared at Bull’s retreating boots he was falling.

 _Oh, yes, you should –_ his mind helpfully added before instinct took over.

Dorian fade-stepped down towards the ground, minimizing the speed of his fall. With fewer feet left to fall, he wouldn’t build the momentum to die. It was counter-intuitive thinking drilled into young mages. He was grateful for the practice now.

He threw up a barrier that buckled as he hit the ground. Something snapped with a sound like a tree splitting. Then there was debris all over him, raining sawdust and shrapnel and wood and iron onto his body.

He knew he should be dead, but he held his hands above his face and the green wall held, deflecting or incinerating the worst offenders.

 _“Dorian!”_ Trevelyan’s scream was rather gratifying. Nice to know he’d be so missed.

He kept the spell up a while longer, then let it fizzle out. He was buried under beams, and could hear Varric’s voice murmuring even up the well.

“I’m okay!” he yelled as loud as he could. Maker forbid they _leave_ him here, thinking his body lost to the ages. How depressing for the house of Pavus’ only heir to be a shriveled corpse, thought to be a drowned blight victim.

Dorian shivered. 

“Dorian?” the uncertainty in the Inquisitor’s tone.

“I’m okay!” he called again. But then the pain gripped him. Blinding, white hot pain that made Dorian turn onto his side and shrimp around his ribs even though he knew rationally he shouldn’t move under the debris. It shifted.

“Maker’s breath, I think he’s alive down there.”

 _No shit, Varric._ But it was too much effort to do more than grunt a tiny sound around the huge ball of air stuffing itself down his mouth and throat, holding his breath against the incomprehensible agony of his leg.

 _Fuck_.

It wasn’t hard to understand. Broken in the fall. He had been so smug about fade-stepping the right way, he had forgotten how to fall properly. His mage master would have strung him up by his ankles for a rookie mistake like that – literally. He should have come out of this encounter looking the hero. Not the pathetic idiocy victim who went and broke their leg.

“Hang on! Dorian! Hang on! We’re coming!”

Dorian couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. He only coughed sawdust out of his mouth and nose, and rubbed helplessly at his eyes as he tried not to scream. Belatedly, he put the barrier spell back up, draining the last of his magic when he heard the first debris begin to shift.

“Careful!” Trevelyan’s voice was still far away, which didn’t make sense. If she was at the top of the shaft, then who –

“He’s got a shield up,” bellowed Bull, after he had heaved an enormous wooden beam blocking Dorian’s line of sight.

“How’s he look?”

“Leg’s broken.”

“I’m fine,” wheezed Dorian.

“You’re alive,” said Bull.

They looked at each other.

“A little help?” Dorian managed something like humor, even as his breath ravaged his throat in short, shallow gasps.

“You caught me,” said Bull, still clearing debris, but not even looking at it. His eye was studying Dorian, who felt ugly and pinched and dusty in the moment Bull had _finally_ decided to look at him.

“You’d have done the same.”

“But you caught me and let yourself fall.”

“You’d have done the same.”

Bull cleared the last of the debris and Dorian didn’t realize he had _braced_ himself against the feeling of Bull’s hot hands through his robes as he carefully dragged his limp body from the debris field.

“Yeah,” said Bull. “I just didn’t know you would.”


	3. The Still Ruins, the Western Approach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really liked the Still Ruins actually. Most of these chapters are my personal fav haunts/quests. But also very good moments to explore sweet sweet flourishing relationships.

“This is _utterly_ fascinating,” said Solas, inches away from a frozen demon.

“Don’t _touch_ ,” Trevelyan scolded, hurrying over and pulling on Solas’ arm. He hardly noticed.

“I wouldn’t say fascinating,” said Bull darkly, shrugging big shoulders.

Dorian yawned dramatically, then sagged like an ingénue into the arms of a surprised guard. “Don’t mind if I do.”

“Dorian!” yelped Trevelyan, letting go of Solas to bustle towards him instead. “You can’t use that man as a chair!”

“I’m not sitting on his face,” Dorian said innocently.

Trevelyan flushed up all over, Solas pretended not to hear, and Bull gave him an air high-five. Bull had taken to Dorian in a way that made him very proud, even if he'd never admit it aloud. The Iron Bull was polite to everyone. And Dorian meant _everyone_. In Tevinter, most servants were slaves and it was considered gouache to notice them. In fact, noticing a servant meant the servant was not doing a good job, which would draw the eye of the supervising staff of the room and likely induce severe punishment later. Dorian had _not_ looked at many spilled drinks, trembling hands, quickly snuck bites of food. The servants knew this. They liked him better than his father, which was all that mattered anyway.

But the Iron Bull was polite to every kitchen girl, every maid making up the beds, Cabot behind the bar, Maryden the bard, Scout Harding, Master Dennett in the stables, Bonny Sims selling wares, even silly Sera trafficking smuggled items while Trevelyan pretended not to notice. _Everyone_. And not just because he ended up in most of their beds, either. 

So for the Iron Bull not to be polite to Dorian made him feel special. The Iron Bull was rowdy with his Chargers, and sometimes ventured a joke or two to fluster the Inquisitor or Josephine. He even joked some with Cullen, who looked confused and awkward how to reciprocate, which seemed to please Bull to no end. Really only Varric, Sera, and Dorian responded in kind. Dorian was stupidly pleased by this.

“How’s the leg?” Bull asked as Dorian shifted his weight on a hip, leaning against the frozen man. He was slightly too small and rocked in place.

Dorian made an exaggerated _oops_ face and moved to a frozen rage demon that outclassed him by several hundred pounds. It was terrifying to be so close to a demon, much less touching one. He pretended it wasn’t nerve-wracking to save face. He glared at Bull instead as he leaned. “It’s fine,” he lied.

In fact, it hurt when they had been walking a long time. They had found the ‘Still Ruins’ as Solas was calling them towards the end of the day, when Dorian had hoped to make camp. He had been cocking a hip to take the weight off of it, and damn him, the Iron Bull had noticed. Bull had an uncanny way of knowing when Dorian was extra tired, or in pain. Dorian found this flustering and frustrating. He had been hiding his infamous headaches so long that when Bull pointed them out he had almost bitten his whole hand off snapping back.

“Hmm,” grunted Bull, taking up a position on the other side of the rage demon. Though made of lava, it wasn’t warm to the touch. It wasn’t cold either, like marble. It was just…nothing. Like leaning against a leather covered chair. Dorian shivered at the thought of stretched together skin.

“It hurts a little,” admitted Dorian.

“I know.”

“Well then why did you ask?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you always know.”

“I don’t _always_ know.”

“You act as though you do.”

“No, just with you.”

“With _me?_ ”

“You’re expressive.”

“What?”

“Your eyes. They’re expressive.”

Dorian was very glad he was on the other side of a frozen rage demon or he might have melted into the floor from the heat in his face.

Instead, he shifted his weight, testing his bad leg. It twinged in the socket where his thigh met his hip. He had broken the femur, the hardest bone in the human body because he had channeled too much weight into it for Bull’s platform. He would never _tell_ the Iron Bull this, of course. No need to compound the guilt.

Bull had dragged Dorian out from the debris pit by his armpits and then slung him over one of his shoulders. Dorian's broken leg had dangled uselessly, jolting against Bull’s body as the big qunari physically pulled himself up a rope in a complete deadlift. Dorian would have been impressed if he hadn’t kept whiting in and out of consciousness from the pain. Both he and Bull’s breath had been very ragged: Bull’s with the sheer effort and concentration of not falling or dropping Dorian’s dead weight. Dorian had been panting from the small whimpers of pain and panic, trying to swallow them with chest racking sobs of terror that made him want to shrivel up in shame that Bull could feel them pressed to his bare skin.

But Bull had said nothing. Hadn’t even teased Dorian, which had been well and good considering Dorian didn’t think he remembered how to speak, much less how to speak either politely or coherently. At the top, Trevelyan had laid his leg out as straight as she could and given him a healing potion. It wasn’t strong enough for a severely broken bone, so they had bound up his leg and carried him on a litter back to the surface. Once in a rotting abandoned house, Varric and Bull had gone for soldiers at a dead run, while Trevelyan – no hardened soldier, only a form based fighter – stayed behind and held his hand, apologizing over and over for the trip.

Dorian had tried not to notice that every time he looked at the Inquisitor a body swung gently in the summer heat just behind her head from a noose in the rafters.

The soldiers had carried him back to camp, and Dorian had been transported by cart back to Skyhold with a drawn Trevelyan. Luckily, Solas had been one of the first on the scene, and Dorian lost consciousness when Solas laid a hand to his forehead and told him to _sleep_. He knew the bone had to be rebroken to be set, and when Dorian had awoken in his own bed in Skyhold, he had seen Vivienne calmly reading in a deep-seated armchair.

“You know boss,” called Bull as she wandered past in the Ruins, her hands full of papers she was collecting. “If we accidentally start time in here again, we’ll probably all die.”

“We’re not going to start time again. At least not today.”

“There’s a rift in the other room,” said Solas calmly. “It’s absolutely fascinating how they’re playing with time.”

Dorian thought about his graduate studies with Alexis. _Not really_ , he thought to himself.

Trevelyan must have heard the thought. Or at the very least read it in his stiffening shoulders because she threw him an understanding glance. The trip through time had been…bizarre wasn’t even the right word. Something that combined bizarre and macabre and flesh-meltingly horrifying and headache inducing and terrible. Some word he didn’t have a name for besides _Corypheus._

“A rift?” Trevelyan’s eyes lit up.

Dorian wanted to whimper _no, not today_ , but he couldn’t.

“Boss, Dorian’s done.”

Dorian straightened up out of sheer indignation at Bull’s audacity. “I’m fine!”

“He says he’s fine,” smiled Trevelyan. “A rift, huh? Solas, let’s go.”

Solas, giddy and eager and perfectly cavalier about the fact that he, Bull, and Dorian all knew Dorian was lying, followed the Inquisitor.

“Don’t do that,” Dorian snapped when the Iron Bull opened his mouth. “Don’t speak _for_ me.”

“I’m just trying to-“

“You can’t _always_ know.”

“I don’t.”

“But you _do._ You know I have a headache before _I_ know I have a headache. You know that?”

Bull grinned a half smile as he and Dorian leaned against a crumbling balustrade as Trevelyan and Solas eagerly tripped up and down crowded staircases, trying to work out some sort of order.

“It’s because you don’t let yourself feel things.”

Dorian felt goosebumps raise up and down his arms and was absurdly grateful he was wearing thick leather sleeves and the Iron Bull couldn’t possibly see.

“Come again?”

“I just mean you push yourself too hard. Especially in battle. You’re almost always half dead by the time we close the rift. A couple times even unconscious.”

“Yes, yes,” Dorian waved a hand. “As everyone is, sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” agreed Bull. “Not a lot. I’m not out a lot.”

“You’re a tank.”

“Thanks.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Sounded like one.”

Dorian didn’t blush. He refused.

“I don’t push myself too hard,” he said instead.

The Iron Bull let the flirtation go as easily as he had offered it, while Dorian pretended to be oblivious to the social knife’s edge. Most men were. He could pretend he didn’t see the nuance of subtext.

“You get these headaches,” said Bull, his voice laced with amusement. “And you scratch your head _right_ over the spot they hurt. And your eyes get all tight at the corners. And you still don’t notice.”

Dorian lost the battle not to blush. He hadn’t realized Bull was so observant. A feral in The Game indeed. 

“Come on,” he said instead. “The Inquisitor waits for no one.”

“Not even a limper.”

“Oh, don’t worry yourself,” Dorian said sweetly. “Yours is hardly noticeable today.”

The Iron Bull threw him a sardonic, frustrated, delighted glance, and Dorian looked quickly away. This was no subtle flirtation. The glance was practically smoking.

There was a sound in the inner chamber and the two of them broke into a run without speaking, their banter forgotten.

The catalyst rift was moving syrupy through the air. Dorian could see Trevelyan and Solas stumbling backwards. A fade-step, and he yanked the Inquisitor around the waist just as the first explosion sent them flying backwards through a banister that bruised Dorian’s back so severely he lost all his breath for a moment. _That_ would be purple.

Then it was fighting. So, so much fighting.

Dorian lost count of how many demons he had killed, only that through every room his leg hurt him and his back hurt him, and then his breath hurt him and he knew he had probably broken some ribs and he knew Bull was no better because he was bleeding everywhere and his horns were scored with sword marks. Dorian made to walk into an empty space before he felt warm hands he recognized around his chest. Before he could warn Bull about his ribs, the Iron Bull had yanked him down a flight of stairs and they both rolled on the tile just as an enormous explosion went off.

“Fuck!” yelled Dorian. Or, tried to. His breath was somewhere fifteen feet away, where he had been standing. Bull was trying to roll back up to his feet and having trouble, like a slow moving tortoise. Solas alone was fighting with teeth-bared savagery.

And then the Still Ruins were still again.

“Come on.” Trevelyan was standing over Dorian, offering him a hand up. One of her arms was held tightly to her body and Dorian wasn’t sure if the blood down her front was from an arm injury or an injury the arm was covering.

“Let me see,” he tried to say as he stood, but everything in him screamed instead and what came out was a pathetic whimper.

Solas was already there in any case, pushing Dorian aside and checking over the Inquisitor with a solicitude that Dorian might have mistaken for romantic interest if Trevelyan were an elf.

Dorian staggered over to the Iron Bull, who had given up on sitting up and had both his arms over his head. His eye was shut and his eyepatch had come off somewhere. Dorian tired not to stare.

“You can.”

“What?”

“Look at it.” Bull hadn’t even opened his eye.

“I –“

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“What?”

“I imagined worse. An explosion.”

“Nah,” Bull’s blue eye was ringed with a darker blue iris. Dorian couldn’t stop staring at it, instead of the ruined deflated socket next to it. He had read somewhere that was called having smalt eyes. The dark blue ring around the light.

“You need help up?”

“You hurting?”

“Yes.”

“You’re learning. Admitting it.”

“More that I’m much too hurt to hide it.”

“Can I guess?”

“Guess?”

“Pretty good at guessing, after the Chargers.”

“Give me your hand.”

“Nah, I’ve got it.”

“Just to help you sit up.”

“Okay.” A brief grunt. “Thanks.”

Bull breathed in heavily and Dorian checked over his shoulder. Trevelyan had been induced to show her skin beneath the split fabric of her leather armor. Solas had his hand flat against it, and Trevelyan looked uncomfortable under the intensity of his gaze.

“Broken ribs, right?”

“What?”

“The way you’re standing. Right side?”

“I think from behind. We went through a stone banister.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

“But you saved her life.”

“I suppose. You saved mine, again.”

“Just caught you.”

“Caught me from walking straight into a bomb.”

“Eh.” This was almost shyness, and Dorian smiled in spite of himself.

“And you? What happened to cut you up?”

“I’m okay.”

“Bull.” And Dorian heard himself say it, with teasing fondness, and they both stopped talking to stare at one another.

“Come on,” said Solas, oblivious as always to the mood of everyone around him. He had come back. “We need to get to camp.”

“You won’t hear me complaining,” said Dorian.

“Maybe I’d like to,” muttered Bull under his breath.

Dorian threw him a smile over one shoulder, and together the four of them limped into camp.


	4. The Forbidden Oasis

“Fuck it’s bollocks sweat hot,” Sera complained. “Tubby tits hot. Arsehole hair hot. And it should be nice, yeah?”

“It’s an oasis _in the desert_ ,” Trevelyan reminded her. “The desert is hot.”

“All right for you lot, yeah?” Sera asked. “He’s got no shirt on, and when I tried to have no shirt on, you got all chokey and funny and told me to put it back on.” Sera paused, smug. “You liked it.”

“Sera,” said the Inquisitor, her voice strained.

“Yeah, yeah, just having a laugh.”

“Let’s go in the water,” said Dorian, glancing longingly over the edge of the stone rampart to the waterfall pounding below.

“Oh! Yeah! Good! Do that!”

“You’d die if you jumped from here,” said Trevelyan. “And –“

There was a brief skirmish in front of a large temple entrance. Afterwards, Sera laid down by one of their tents. “Come _onnnnnnnn_ ,” she moaned. “Let’s go for a swim. The temple’ll still _be_ there you know.”

Trevelyan looked hesitant, not quite cutting her eyes at Dorian, which he interpreted as a request for a second opinion.

“I’m sweating like a sack,” he announced. “I’ll swim.”

Trevelyan smiled gratefully at him as Sera squealed, and they tromped back down to the water level, shedding boots and clothes by the ramp upwards.

Dorian had taken his clothes off before strangers before. He _had_. And yet his fingers fumbled uselessly as he tried to get them off now. It wasn’t like the Iron Bull was _naked._ He could have been though; he apparently didn’t hold much truck with nudity and didn’t bat an eyelash when Sera splashed in beside him at top speed in nothing but her underwear, breasts bare and glaringly white as Trevelyan modestly tied her breastband more tightly after Sera tried to yank it down.

The Iron Bull was always on display, and Dorian had definitely seen him sweating. But watching water roll down his slicked muscles as he and Sera splashed each other made Dorian’s mouth go dry. This was _ridiculous_. He was a _qunari_. Except, he wasn’t. Not to Dorian. He was only Bull.

And Bull was ridiculously good looking, damn it.

“Hurry _up!_ ” Sera called, splashing Dorian with a huge handful of water that spattered his neatly folded clothes.

“Hey!” he turned, annoyed, and got a faceful from the Iron Bull.

Dorian forgot to be shy. He jumped into the waist deep water and began jogging after Sera, sending huge tidal waves with magic to drench everyone around him, insufferably bragging that the driest one was the winner.

He felt a heavy weight hit his back before Sera wrapped her arms around his chest and her legs around his waist and mashed her stringy wet hair into his. “I got him! I got him! Go now!”

Dorian didn’t even fight as Trevelyan and Bull splashed him down with armfuls of water, only laughed, sputtering against the deluge, feeling a slick Sera slip down his back and into the water to join the attack.

There was a sudden, strange silence, and Dorian opened his tightly shut eyes, half expecting another splash to the face. He was staring at the three faces of his companions, all of them with their heads tilted up and over where Dorian was standing. With spine tingling dread, he turned his head very slowly, and saw it.

A giant. A troll. It was something large, something mean, and something very big. It was also standing between them and their gear. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Iron Bull flexing his hands, Sera eyeing the distance to her bow, Trevelyan desperately casting about for something to use as a shield. He knew, without a doubt, it was down to him to serve as a distraction.

Dorian took a deep breath, blowing out gently through his mouth but loud enough to draw the interested gaze. Then he set off the five fire mines he had used the precious seconds to seed, two under each foot, and one between them, which aptly hit its ass as it sat down.

It roared in pain.

The Iron Bull didn’t flinch, sprinting for his gear, Sera and the Inquisitor half a second behind. Dorian spent the next half a minute pouring every ounce of his strength into the magic needed to keep this thing distracted. Bull didn’t bother to gear up, only grabbing a greataxe and sprinting back. Trevelyan was trying to hop into leather armor wet, an impossibility anytime, but she was modest. Sera ripped her armor from her and Dorian quickly glanced back at his fight for the denial of seeing Trevelyan’s breasts spring free. To his surprise, both she and Sera joined the fight mostly nude, Sera taking aim from higher ground for the thing’s head.

Dorian knew he was dealing the most damage since Trevelyan and Bull were only able to hack at its legs. But he was fading. He didn’t want them to know; it seemed so hopeless. Three tiny beings against an enormous one with nothing but pointy needles to their hands. Dorian had fire and lightning, and so he opened his throat and mind and hands, screaming a wordless cry as an enormous pillar of lightning shot out of the blue sky straight through the head of the thing.

He didn’t even see it hit the ground.

He blinked at the blurred vision of Trevelyan’s face bent over him.

“What-“ he tried to say, but something covered his mouth, air in his lungs, and he began sputtering and coughing. Rolling to one side he threw up a stream of tepid silty water that made him gag tasting it.

His head was spinning and pounding and he knuckled at his eyes.

“You’re alive!” Sera squealed throwing herself bodily onto Dorian to hug him.

Dorian realized they were both still bare chested as he raised a hand to his waterlogged hair and pushed it from his face.

“What-“

“You drowned,” snapped Trevelyan, looking furious. “You can’t _drown_.”

“Sorry,” Dorian said, his head thumping back into the sandy grit of the shoreline. “Sorry, it's the lightning.”

“We would have killed it.”

“Eventually,” Dorian muttered.

“Yes! Eventually! You idiot!” Trevelyan was getting in stride with her anger now, leaning back on her haunches to impose. Dorian realized with some embarrassment she was still mostly naked. “It was going to be a long battle we were prepared to fight. There was no need to go and play the hero for a few seconds of glory! You toppled over into the water so fast it was a whole minute before any of us could find you with our feet!”

“Ah,” said Dorian. It was easier to speak in single words. He rested the crook of his elbow over his eyes to shade them.

“You’re lucky Bull found you in time! Or at all!”

“Yes.”

“Dorian!”

“What?”

“Andraste, are you okay?”

Dorian dropped his elbow and squinted up at Trevelyan. Her face was screwed up like she was going to cry. Apparently Sera saw it too because she slithered off Dorian to give the Inquisitor the chance to hug him, burying her face in his neck.

“You’re so stupid!” she berated, even as she seized his cheek and kissed it with a ferocity that would have made Dorian laugh if he had any wind at all.

”No fair,” said the Iron Bull, who had been silent to this point. Dorian tilted his head up, searching. Bull wasn’t immediately in his line of sight.

Instead, he was kneeling by Dorian’s head, and Dorian realized it was because Bull had pulled him out of the water.

Dorian cast a grateful flailing hand somewhere above him, hit Bull’s knee, patted it vaguely a few times, and withdrew.

“Oh no, that’s bullshit,” said Bull, leaning down. Before Dorian knew what he was doing Bull had dropped a soft and burningly hot kiss on Dorian’s forehead between his eyes.

Dorian tried to speak, but only cleared his throat.

“I hate to say it,” said Trevelyan with the brittle awkwardness of someone who disliked bringing up an uncomfortable subject. “But if Dorian’s not dead, we should really explore that temple.”

Sera wasn’t the only one to groan.

Dorian allowed Bull to pull him to his feet, where he swayed unsteadily.

“Your head?” guessed Bull.

“Yeah,” Dorian managed.

“You need water.”

“I’m through with water.”

“From the canteen,” Bull said, with half a smile, passing his own to Dorian as they started to get dressed. Bull, predictably, was done first. Sera second with hardly any regard for her appearance, her hair making her look like a half drowned skinny cat.

“You’re ahead of me,” said Dorian as he got dressed.

Bull frowned. “I’ll take rear guard.”

“I meant, in catching.”

“Catching?”

“Caught me like a fish.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“And from that blast in the ruins.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t like being behind.”

“But maybe I like being ahead,” grinned Bull, with all his teeth.

“Ew!” said Sera loudly, and they both chuckled, making after Trevelyan, whose boots squished with every step.


	5. Emprise du Lion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look I don't wanna play a male inquisitor but god damn if I haven't been in love with Cassandra since my first playthrough

“What is it?” asked Cassandra with her usual inflections of disgust.

“An owl,” said Trevelyan happily. She had been enthusiastic in dragging Cassandra in to see it.

“A very _big_ owl,” said Cassandra doubtfully. This was as close as she could come to conciliatory.

“Yep. It’s a big owl statue covered in ice. Isn’t it _neat_?”

Cassandra glanced at the younger woman as if checking if she was mentally sound. She glanced at Dorian then rolled her eyes expressively at herself when she saw that both Dorian and the Iron Bull were smiling at her.

“Yes! Fine! It’s very – the word you used.”

“Neat!”

“Well it’s not tidy-“

“Cassandra!”

“Yes, yes, it’s pretty.”

“Really?”

“Really. The owl is very…big.”

“That’s what I thought!”

“Poor Trevvy,” sighed Dorian to Bull as they fell slightly behind, the two warriors leading the way.

“She knows it won’t happen,” Bull said, smiling slightly. “But she can’t help it. She likes strong women.”

“I expect she’ll be after Leliana next.”

“Don’t think so.”

“Oh?”

“Leliana and the Hero of Fereldan?”

“Who?”

“Nevermind. Leliana is already…was already…”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Cassandra could do worse, honestly. If she’d unbend her back a little.”

Dorian choked on his canteen. He had been tapping the ice off of it from the frigid atmosphere of Emprise du Lion, and he told himself it was the temperature that made his throat close.

“Hell, I’d give her a ch-“

Dorian nudged him hard in the ribs as Trevelyan paused, listening. Dorian didn’t want _that_ comment carrying if he could help it.

It had been four and a half months. He knew it was half a month because that’s how long he’d been stuck running around in an icy hellscape freezing his toes blue. Every night Dorian took off his shoes and socks in his frigid tent and rubbed lotion into the cracking skin, heating the lotion with a warming spell before pulling on everything he owned again.

He shared a tent wall with the Iron Bull and was miffed to notice that Bull had _no_ trouble warming his tent, even without magic.

The Iron Bull subsided, which Dorian counted as a victory for himself. He and Bull were actually friends now, if you could call a short relationship friendship. But as they spent nearly every day together except when Bull was on campaign with the Chargers, Dorian had filled up the hours with small talk enough to graduate them from friendly to friends. At least in his own mind.

“Do you hear that?” Trevelyan asked softly.

“What?” asked Cassandra at her normal volume, approximately a shouting level for any other human. Dorian had to hand it to her; she had a pair of lungs.

“Damn!” cried Trevelyan as an arrow sliced past her throat, peeling it open like the ripped skin of a plum. Blood splashed down her shoulder.

Dorian was readying spells even as he watched Cassandra’s rage ignite into a true ferocity at the slight. She dove in front of Trevelyan landing sword and head first into a magister. Dorian hoped the man died before Cassandra stood up again, because when she did, her hands were bloody to the elbows.

The Iron Bull was watching Cassandra with something that bordered between sheer admiration and lust. Dorian made a face and sent several bolts of electricity arching into the chest of a mage sneaking up on Cassandra from behind. He made a sort of strangle gurgle before Trevelyan ran him through with her sword.

“What about Vivienne?” Bull called through the melee.

Dorian made a face at him. “What?”

“For the Inquisitor?”

Dorian glanced at Trevelyan, but she and Cassandra were fighting back to back in a circle of magisters. Dorian sent a rippling fire wall to roar up and roast three of them alive before he answered.

“Trevelyan’s already tried.”

“We all have.”

“What?” Dorian spun again, not sure he heard right, but the Iron Bull was only laughing as he broke a man’s spine over one knee.

“Cassandra’s down!” bellowed Trevelyan, her feet straddling the unconscious body of the Seeker.

Bull roared the visceral roar of a reaver and waded in, but he had only been fighting for seconds before Trevelyan swayed and then slumped to his feet.

“Dorian!”

Dorian ran forward, shooting shards of ice shaped like knives. One hit a magister in the neck and he burbled blood before falling limply. The rest only inflicted minor damage as Dorian pulled the cork of a lyrium potion with his teeth.

“This fight is –“ Bull began, his eyes glancing around.

Glass hit him across the back of the head. Not even a spell but a simple potion bottle.

Bull staggered, but didn’t go down. His eye grew unfocused, the grip on his greataxe limp.

“Bull! Tell me about Trevelyan’s love life!”

Bull turned, too slow, and caught a spell across his chin, leaving a burn mark from one already mangled ear to his lip.

“What?” he managed.

“Trevelyan!” Dorian called again, desperately. He was overwhelmed. Four against one. There was no way he could –

Bull glanced down in surprise, standing over the Inquisitor’s limp form. Almost without thinking about it when a mage sent another spell, Dorian fade-stepped towards her and pushed her towards Bull. Bull grabbed the mage in a hug, his greataxe falling, and snapped her body without a thought.

Dorian managed this trick once more before Bull finally sank to his knees, a series of sharpened rocks piercing his back as he tipped forward over Trevelyan and Cassandra’s bodies and crushed them beneath his bulk as a living shield.

Dorian set his teeth and drank another lyrium potion. The next five minutes felt an age. He would have been well matched against one of the mages. Against two it was all he could do to use all his magic to stay alive. He got lucky with one. Forced him back and back and back until the cold ice of the cave wall pressed to his back and Dorian _yanked._ An icicle as thick around as his fist shot through the man’s spine and chest, and he died without a sound.

The last fight with a grueling grind to the death. The mage wasn’t backing down, though Dorian kept darting glances and nodding with his chin to flee. The poor bastard wasn’t having it. With his companions down, he clearly thought there was something to avenge. Poor fool.

When he finally died from Dorian burning him for the twentieth time, he hardly looked human. Dorian could almost feel bad, but at the end he wasn’t even sure if the other man could feel the burns, or if his super human dedication had forced his body to continue long past the point of pain.

Dorian groaned. He wanted to collapse on his knees and let his hangover tap into him. He had cheated during this fight. A mage had a wellspring of magic that could be replenished with lyrium. But they _also_ had life magic, which was a form of blood magic. Dorian could burn some of his own life in exchange for magic, a very poor trade and used only in the direst of emergencies. Helpful if you stocked up in advance – he knew several wizards who ate their weight at table to carry emergency stores with them. Not as helpful if you were a vain Tevinter princeling living in a remote mountain castle where all foods had to be imported.

He was going to be…well, he would live. For a while.

Dorian did drop to his knees, but only beside Bull. Wearily, he uncorked a regeneration potion. It took all his strength to roll Bull’s head enough to one side to dribble it in his mouth. As Bull came to, he rolled fully onto his back while Dorian said: “Don’t!”

The rocks in Bull’s back either embedded deeper or cut Cassandra’s face beneath him.

Obediently, the Iron Bull froze, and Dorian fed him the rest of the potion. “Crawl over here,” he directed, and Bull did it meekly while Dorian quickly hand dug the rocks he could see out of Bull’s back.

“The rest we’ll have to do at camp,” he said, frowning. The skin was growing over bits, leaving bumps behind. If he didn’t remove them, they’d grow infected. “It’ll hurt.”

“It’s fine.”

“Stay there and drink some water.”

“What about you?”

“Be quiet.”

Dorian returned and woke Cassandra next. The woman was bleary, still adrenaline heavy on battle lust, struggling to sit up on numb arms. She saw Trevelyan and gave an anguished cry before Dorian could assure her it was all right.

He gave Trevelyan the last health potion, and she blinked awake, staring at the grit on the ground before she began to shiver violently.

“Put her between you and Bull,” said Dorian. “Bull needs medical attention. He’s got grit in his back.”

“We’ll mark a new campsite not far from here,” said Cassandra, determinedly. “I’ll go for the soldiers.”

“No, it’s stupid to press on,” argued Dorian. “We should go back.”

“Onwards,” Trevelyan whispered, her head lolling on Bull’s shoulder as he held her blue fingertips in his large hands.

Dorian yanked his gaze away.

“Fine,” he said. “We’d best get moving.”

“You’re-“

“Bull, I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Bull carried the Inquisitor, which Dorian gestured at mutely to Cassandra that it made his point.

“She said to go on,” said Cassandra loyally.

Dorian ground his teeth. “You might kill her.”

“I’ll go back now then, for the soldiers. You and the Iron Bull can –“

“Fine,” snapped Dorian, who was in no mood to be polite. “Go then. And bring a healer if you can find one.”

“For-“

“For Bull.”

“Hey,” said Bull. “What about-“

“ _Shut up_ ,” snarled Dorian, and to his surprise, the Iron Bull shut up.

They trudged in silence for almost an hour. Dorian hardly remembered any of it. He was so depleted his whole world was spinning. He had used too much of his life magic for safety, but if he hadn’t they would have all died.

“You’re up,” Bull said out of the blue.

“What?” Dorian could not turn his eyes to face him. He needed all his concentration to make the coordinated motion of lifting his knee to lift his foot to place it on the ground before him.

“You caught me, back there.”

“Not caught.”

“I fell. You were there to catch me.”

“Fine. That means we’re square.”

“I don’t like keeping score.”

“That’s because you like winning.”

A long silence, and Dorian almost forgot they were speaking.

“We could try setting up camp here,” Bull offered.

Dorian turned. A mistake.

“Dorian!” He saw flashes of things. Bull trying to set Trevelyan down, the way parts of his back split open as the skin stretched over the debris, and then the grass, the lovely freezing grass coming up to meet his face.

Then nothing at all.

He gasped a breath in. Only a moment had passed.

He sat up.

The air was warm with the smell of cooking meat. He was under blankets on a cot. A very severe looking dalish mage was glaring down at him.

“ _Life_ magic, Tavinte tarlen?”

“Sorry,” Dorian said weakly.

“What’s life magic?” asked the Iron Bull pleasantly, from somewhere behind Dorian’s head. He tried to turn to locate the voice, but was too tired and his neck hurt too much. He closed his eyes again.

It was dark when he awoke. There was a dull heaviness above him. He raised a leaden hand to his head. It took two tries.

“You’re awake.”

Dorian flopped his chin to one side. “Bull.” His voice was a ruin.

There was a sloshing, then a canteen. The shock of icy water reminded Dorian they were in Emprise du Lion, and his brain finally filled in he was in a tent, warm from a small, enclosed fire lit by magelight.

Dorian sloshed most of the canteen on his face and sputtered.

“You can ask for help, you know.”

“What?”

“With the water.”

“Cap?”

The Iron Bull sighed in defeat and gave the cap to Dorian, who spent a long time with clumsy fingers trying to thread the screws of it together.

“Here,” he said proudly, handing it back after far too long.

Bull only leaned back against the wooden leg of the cot. He was very close to Dorian’s shoulder, and his body heat was warm and pleasant. Dorian felt drowsy, even after just waking.

“Why are you in my tent?” he managed after an effort not to nod off.

“Life magic?”

“What about it?”

“You used life magic to fight.”

“Only the last one.”

“You used _part of your life_.”

“I would have died – you all would have died – if I hadn’t.”

“There were plenty of swords you could have picked up.”

Dorian paused. He hadn’t thought of that. “Hmm,” he said instead.

“Why are you so desperate to get killed?” Bull’s voice was frustrated.

“I’m not.”

“First the Oasis. Now this.”

“You’re the one with shrapnel in his back. I watched you – hang on, a concussion?”

“So they tell me.”

“Don’t fall asleep.”

“You will.”

“I won’t. I’ll wait up with you.”

“You’ve been sleeping all day.”

“Have I?”

“Yeah. Healer said it was normal. Faster recovery than most, actually. Says…she says you must have _had practice_.”

Dorian turned onto a hip on the cot so that his breath fanned over the back of Bull’s shoulder. Bull turned his head in the darkness, the light from the fire illuminating his profile with a perfect gold crescent.

“Dorian.”

“What?”

“You’ve used life magic before?”

“Once or twice.”

“When?”

“When else? During the Inquisition, of course. No need in Tevinter.”

“Dorian! You’ll kill yourself that way!”

“No,” Dorian tried to gesture, but his hand was heavy on the bed. “I’m okay.”

“You’ll be okay until you use it all up. And then you’ll be dead.”

“I’m a necromancer, remember?” Dorian huffed weakly, and then smiled in the dark. His smile faded when he could feel that Bull was still angry. “Like what you do is any different,” he said sourly.

“What?”

“Always jumping in front of everyone. Taking the hardest hits. Going down bleeding.”

“That’s my job.”

“And my job is to stay alive to keep the rest of you alive. Tag team. Forward charge and rear guard.”

Dorian stopped, leaving the easy joke in the silence, but Bull didn’t take it. Dorian could see bright pink weals across his back where the debris had been dug out and rehealed. It wasn’t the mood for their usual easy banter. Tentatively he reached a hand out and draped it loosely over Bull’s shoulder, offering something more.

A moment’s silence. Then Bull roughly put his own hand up to clasp over Dorian’s, holding it in place.

“At least when I do it, you can see I’m hurt.”

“Is that why you’re watching me? To see if I’m in pain?”

“You don’t tell anyone.”

“You can’t let them see the cost.” That slipped out before Dorian could catch it. His father’s words tripping off his tongue.

The Iron Bull was silent. Instead of saying anything for a moment he reshifted his grip on Dorian’s hand and a soft thumb began to skate over the back of Dorian’s. Dorian buried his face into the covers at the unbearable intimacy and heard a huffed laugh before realizing his face was inches from Bull’s shoulder, and thus any sound he made was clearly visible.

Like the first time he and Bull had gone out hiking, Dorian held his breath, his heart thundering wildly in his ears, trying not to make a sound.

There was a slow shift on the ground, and Bull let go of his hand. But only to swing his long legs under the cot so that his elbows were on the edge. He bracketed Dorian’s head and curved arm between his own.

“I see it,” he said simply.

Dorian felt something hot and howling and painful swamp him. He wanted to bury his face into the pillow and burst into tears or shake apart or yell at Bull to _go away_ lest he see the monstrosity Dorian was. Instead he focused on not letting his tiny panted breaths hiccup. Finally trusted his eyes to flick up to Bull’s backlit face. Feeling the darkness safe on his skin, Dorian let his eyes well up, confident Bull couldn’t see.

To his surprise, Bull dropped a careful hand to his hair and ran his clever thumb over the unshaven part of Dorian’s jaw, through his hair, skating tiny circles into his scalp. Dorian closed his eyes, felt the tears drip out. Tried not to make a sound.

“You don’t have to be so strong, you know,” Bull continued, as if Dorian wasn’t dancing on a knife’s edge. “Don’t have to bear the team’s weight alone.”

“You-“ Dorian stopped, swallowed the sound in his throat. “You were the one who carried Trevelyan.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Dorian sniffed a wet sound and then laughed at himself, covering his face with one hand.

“Dorian,” and the Iron Bull’s voice was hesitant enough to peek between his fingers into the darkness. His eyes were adjusting and he could see the way Bull held his jaw, relaxed a bit, like he was readying for Dorian to hit him.

“What?”

“Can you tell me when…when it gets to life magic?”

Dorian shifted his legs beneath the warm blankets.

“Please.”

“I-“ Dorian cast his eyes away. “If another mage is there, they’ll – “

“We can have a safeword.”

Dorian laughed for a second, but when Bull didn’t, he abruptly stopped. “You’re serious?”

“Any word you like. And don’t worry, we can pick another one for the other thing.”

The thread of humorous suggestion in Bull’s voice made Dorian’s shoulders relax, and Bull began stroking Dorian’s hair again, as naturally as he would pet a cat.

Dorian tried not to make any more sounds even as he thought. “How about, I’m tapped out?”

“The phrase, tapped out?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Bull?”

“Yeah?”

“You can’t fall asleep, okay?”

“Nah, I’ll sit here. I’m okay.”

“No. That’s weird. You’re just staring at me.”

“You’re nice to stare at.”

“Do be quiet.”

“You love it.”

“I do love being complimented.”

“The soft stuff, huh?”

“Soft stuff?”

“Social compliments.”

“I see Ben Hassrath is out.”

“Hah.”

“Bull?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m cold.”

“I can get a mage to –“

“No, I can turn up the fire.”

“You’ve got your magic?”

“Oh, right.”

“Yeah I’ll-“

“What time is it?”

“After two, I’d say.”

“She’s asleep for sure.”

“So?”

“So, can’t you just…I don’t know…keep me warm?”

Dorian blushed so hard in the dark he was sure he’d scorch Bull’s frozen fingers in his hair.

“Oh so-“

“ _Don’t_ ,” moaned Dorian. “Don’t make it gross and weird.”

“Ah, yeah, okay.”

“Just come here.”

“Will the cot hold us?”

“It has to.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because the entirety of this country knows I refuse to sleep on the ground, that’s why.”

“Incorrigible.”

“No. The ground is _too cold_ to sleep on.”

“Fuck you’re right. I’m stiff.”

“Bull.”

“What? I am!”

“I thought-“

“I know what you thought you dirty son of –“

“Just come here, and tell me a story,” said Dorian, pulling Bull’s long arm under his armpit and hot against his heart. He wanted it to slow down, to be normal. But he also wasn’t sure what a good pace for a heart was; he never listened to his.

“A story?” Bull’s voice was amused, but it was also hot against the back of Dorian’s neck and without his permission his entire body shivered and backed into Bull’s hip as Bull chuckled into his ear.

“You fucking cheat,” Dorian said angrily.

“Let me under the covers, I’m freezing.”

A great deal of flustered rearranging later, Dorian turned his burning face into the cot, resettled his grip in between Bull’s fingers and repeated the request:

“Tell me a story.”

Bull was silent a long time, and when he began it was slow, and not quite sure, though Dorian had expected a dirty drinking song.

“Once, there was a boy,” he said, the words velvety and rich in the dark deep of the tent. It felt warm and black like no one else in the world was there but them and the flickering flames. “He didn’t want to eat his vegetables…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra's disgusted noises thanks to this meme https://64.media.tumblr.com/a6ea8444de53e72a382172871481ca5c/tumblr_nh02kvJXrX1r11pygo1_640.png


	6. Hargrave Keep, the Fallow Mire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I posted chapters today to see if more people would be willing to comment on them since my super long one shots only get a few. We shall see! We're at the end of what I wrote today. More updates to come! Hope to complete this work in 2-3 days. (Don't make me eat my words gods of luck).

“They’re here! They’re here!” Cole called, popping back next to Trevelyan. “They’re in that locked room over there, but there’s no lock from the inside, or I’d get them out!”

“Thanks Cole,” panted the Inquisitor, lunging at another archer who was trying to turn her into a human pincushion. “Do you mind helping Dorian attack the Avvar there in the middle?”

“Sure!” beamed Cole, and the next thing Dorian knew Cole had dropped three feet above him and sunk twin knives into his adversary ripping him from shoulder to hip.

Without warning, the air was filled with arrows. Two more archers up a series of steps had come out and were leveling a storm against Cole and Dorian. Dorian saw three arrows pass through Cole like smoke before he realized Cole was phasing through them.

Unfortunately for Dorian, they continued their trajectory and hit him hard, with soft wet thunks.

“ _No_!” Trevelyan called, her voice anguished. “Cole! Can you take him! Can you take him with you!”

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” Cole’s voice was as panicked as any teenage boy having discovered his error to serious consequence.

Dorian realized he was in the mud. That seemed wrong, somehow. A roar overhead, and a huge booted foot straddling him.

“Bull,” said Dorian. “I’m not tapped out yet.”

“Stay down,” Bull warned him.

Dorian stretched out a weak hand, casting a fireball with every drop of magic he had. The two archers exploded into screaming flames, throwing themselves off the keep rather than burn to death.

“Dorian!” Bull sounded properly angry, and then he was busy, going arms to arms with the Avvar as Trevelyan and Cole knelt in the mud next to Dorian’s head.

“I’m okay,” he tried to tell them. “It didn’t hit my –“

But what it didn’t hit was hard to say. He felt like he was drowning.

 _It hit a lung_ , his mind said nastily. He could feel another in his gut, and a third in his leg.

“Can you take him? Cole! Take him to Solas! To Solas!”

“I can’t!” Cole was equally as frantic. “I don’t think I can!”

“Cole, he’ll _die!_ ”

“I-“

“Cole, he’ll _die_ without your help!”

“But I –“

“Cole! _Please!_ ” Trevelyan’s voice tore on the word in her anguish, and Dorian wanted to pat her sensibly on the shoulder, tell her not to take what she heard in the Gull & Lantern to heart. That his father had always been a bastard, her misplaced pity would not –

There was a strange, world bending _pop_ and both Dorian’s eardrums ruptured.

He screamed in the resulting agony but quickly felt Solas’ magic lancing through him sinking him deep, deep into the dark.

Time passed.

He awoke in pain, working his jaw around to try to hear through swimming ears. His hearing felt murky, underwater. 

“You are extremely lucky,” said Solas, who was pouring through tomes on his drafting table in the mural room. “You nearly died.”

"What?" Dorian said. Tried to say. Solas' voice was swimming in and out of clarity. 

“That mode of travel is not fit for humans. Cole brought you to me with several ruptured organs.”

“Lovely.” The first word he had spoken. His voice sounded hot and painful to his own ears and he winced.

“We had a team of healers working on you night and day.”

“Night and day?” A whisper; better.

“Your healing took nearly fifteen hours.”

“And?”

“And you’ve been unconscious for four days.”

Abruptly Dorian's hearing gave a loud, painful squeal, then seemed to clear, like water from the canals. He worked his jaw even as he tried to understand.

“Five days I’ve…five since…”

“The Inquisitor knows you are alive. As soon as surgery was over I sent Cole back.”

“After…after fifteen hours?”

“Yes.”

Dorian’s head reeled. So for fifteen hours – a whole night – Trevelyan and Bull had thought he was dead. Two companions and a handful of Inquisition soldiers.

“Is…are they…okay?”

“They’re being retrieved,” Solas said, turning back to his maps. “They should arrive in a few days.”

“Why am…” Dorian looked around the room, but couldn’t finish the question.

“I had them set up the cot in here. You kept breaking through your heals and bleeding internally.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, I set up a few small barrier spells so the blood wouldn’t push on the weak healing spots.”

Dorian goggled at him. This was such an ingenious use of magic he was astonished no one had ever thought of it before.

Solas ignored him. “You can leave tomorrow. For now I suggest you rest. And eat. There’s a loaf of bread by your hand, and water.”

Dorian wanted to explain he couldn’t eat an entire loaf of bread, but by that point he was already halfway through and it seemed wasteful to stop. The loaf was hot and crunchy, the bread airy on his tongue. He could recognize Solas’ magic in the warming spells reminiscent of slow baked ovens of hot rocks.

“Thank you,” he managed as he drank the cold water from the snowmelt outside.

Solas turned curious but indifferent eyes his way. They were blue as well, but not bright like Bull’s. Solas’ eyes were a grey blue, the promise of rain on the horizon already falling somewhere not as lucky.

“Sleep,” he told Dorian, and it was a Word of Command.

Dorian tried to speak. Tried to protest, tried to even say he was tired of being hurt in Trevelyan’s service, but instead he slept.

He dreamed he was looking for the Iron Bull on a battlefield, turning the bodies over one by one. They were heavy, and they didn’t want to turn under his hands, the weight making his fingers prickle with the effort. It was only when he woke up with a gasp, Bull’s unseeing smalt blue eye half lidded, did Dorian realize he had been turning over and over in his own cot.

Solas was gone. There was another loaf of bread and flask of water. Dorian ate and drank them both and tried to stand.

“Cole!” he gasped.

Cole popped in, though only afterwards did Dorian remember he hadn’t been in Skyhold.

“You’re awake!”

“Yes. Can you help me to my room?”

“No, Solas says I musn’t do that again. Not with any living thing.”

“I meant walk me.”

“Oh!” Cole beamed. “I can _walk_.”

Dorian felt weak as a kitten, his hand trembling badly in Cole’s as they took the curving staircase upwards to Dorian’s library. It wasn’t really _his_ , but he thought of it as his.

“Let me rest,” he begged Cole, though it had only been a flight of stairs. Cole lowered him into his favorite leather armchair.

“Can I tell the Iron Bull you’re better?”

“Doesn’t he know?”

“No. Solas only said to tell them you were still alive.”

Dorian’s stomach twisted. _Still._ “Yes! Yes, of course. Tell him.”

“He thinks of you all the time,” Cole assured Dorian seriously. “Almost every minute of every day.”

“Well go! Wait- how close are you to arriving back in Skyhold?”

“The Inquisitor wants to push late into the night. She’s desperate to get back. Her guilt is eating her alive. _It’s my fault, he’ll be gone, I’ll have to give his body to that –_ “

“No, Cole, don’t narrate,” Dorian covered his ears. “Just…send Helisma over here and let me know when you’re back. Okay?”

“Okay!” beamed Cole, and popped out. Sheepishly, he immediately popped back in, skipped through the library to find the tranquil researcher, and then shyly stroked Dorian with a feathery light touch on one shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Me too,” Dorian assured him.

Helisma was only too happy – or whatever tranquil could feel that replaced happiness – to bring him a book and a meal. Dorian dozed off over a few pages, so it was like this that Vivienne found him.

“My dear, I’ve been waiting all day for you to pass by,” she chided, but only after kissing him on the cheek, a heretofore impossible event that Dorian had suffered on her, but never expected in return. He smiled, pleased at the deepening of their relationship even as Vivienne pursed her lips in a scowl.

“I’m sorry,” said Dorian. “One flight of stairs and I grew tired.”

“Come now, I’ll feed you dinner and get you to bed.”

“I hardly think you’re the caretaking kind.”

“Bastien,” Vivienne reminded him.

Dorian looked away, suddenly ashamed. “Of course,” he murmured. “How thoughtless of me. Please forgive –“

“Dorian, I’m not angry with you.”

“And Bastien?”

Vivienne hesitated. “The Inquisitor has promised to take me to find a snowy wyvern’s heart.”

Dorian declined to point out the high unlikelihood of such a folklore remedy. Vivienne already knew it. She was exceptionally well educated, high-class and well bred. She knew she was grasping at straws, but sometimes there was only grasping left.

Dorian gave some of his weight to Vivienne. She was well muscled, lean but strong, and he was tired. The walk across the library, up the half flight of stairs to her foyer took all of Dorian’s strength.

“My insides feel flayed,” he complained.

“They were,” Vivienne said shortly. “I saw them.”

Dorian realized that of course Vivienne would have loaned her healing talents to saving his life, and he squeezed the arm that was supporting him.

“Thank you.”

“You do too much, you know.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

“Really? Everyone? Who else?”

“Bull, for one.”

“Ah yes, the Iron Bull.” Vivienne was silent for a moment as she helped Dorian sit at the table. It was set for two with steaming portions of hearty soup kept warm with spells he could just feel niggling at his brain: warm coals on a cold night.

“What?” asked Dorian, but with something like humor instead of exasperation.

“The Iron Bull is…a very…big man.”

“That’s fairly lewd, coming from you.”

“You don’t want to hear me be lewd.”

Dorian thought about how Vivienne was a professional mistress by trade and he only smiled.

Vivienne smiled back across her spoon, never showing her teeth.

Dorian awoke the next day to the sound of a door slamming. He blinked blearily and three things happened very quickly. First: he was positive it was late afternoon by the way the sunlight hit his window, which seemed strange until he remembered his slow healing. Secondly, he was in his bedroom and the door had swung inwards. Thirdly, there was a large heavy _weight_ smothering him.

“Hey!” Dorian struggled, and the weight lifted, revealing itself as two separate weights. One very heavy, and one not.

“Dorian,” said Trevelyan. Her entire face was wet with tears. “Thank the Maker. I thought…we thought…”

“Still alive,” said Dorian lightly. “Can’t lose your best mage like that.”

“Now really,” said Vivienne from the doorway, and Trevelyan flung herself into Vivienne’s arms with a cry of:

“Thank you! Vivienne, thank you! You saved Dorian’s life. Without you-“

“My dear,” inserted Vivienne hastily, drawing an arm around the Inquisitor’s shoulders: an incredible show of affection for her usual reserve. “Let us talk in my foyer down the hall. Leave Dorian to one person at-“

Dorian didn’t hear anymore as they drew away and he felt the flush climb up his neck as he struggled to wrench his gaze to Bull’s face, despite his eyes wanting to remain firmly fixed on his collarbone, afraid of his expression.

When Dorian did meet his eye, he was shocked to find it wet.

“Bull?” Dorian quickly raised his hand to Bull’s to hold it. Six months was hardly long enough for this intensity of feeling. 

“Damn it,” Bull said quietly. “Damn.”

Dorian didn’t know what to say to that, so he only flipped down the covers silently, referencing the quiet night they had spent in Emprise du Lion.

“No, no,” Bull chuckled, or tried. His voice sounded strange. Not like himself. “I’m all sweaty.”

“I can go a lot of ways with a line like that,” Dorian said lightly.

“Damn,” said Bull again.

“Get in the bed.”

“Okay.”

Dorian breathed in deeply as Bull settled himself. There was the road dust of Bull, and the starch of the linen sheets, but also the absolutely wonderful feeling of getting air all the way to the bottom. He stretched out his ribcage and did it again, smiling as Bull touched his chest lightly with his fingers, questioning.

“It’s fine,” said Dorian. “I’m fine.”

Bull’s fingers were still there, and Dorian realized for the first time he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“You’ve got scars,” said Bull huskily.

“Yeah, of course. Even with magic, that was a lot of arrows to-“

“I like them.”

Dorian clicked his teeth shut on the end of his sentence.

“Dorian, I’m-“

“Don’t say it.”

“Say what?”

“You’re sorry.”

“I am.”

“You did nothing wrong.”

“But I did nothing. I let you get hit. I should have caught you.”

“You couldn't have. No one could have seen it. So that makes us still square."

"It doesn't feel square. I feel a million behind. I feel like I failed you."

"Without Cole I would be dead. By all rights I _should_ be dead.”

“But you’re not.”

“No,” said Dorian slowly, staring down at where Bull’s big, hot hand was resting against his chest. “I’m not.”

Bull shifted on the bed, closer. It was an unmistakable move. Asking. Through The Game.

“Come here,” said Dorian in response, pulling on his leather chest strap.

Bull lowered his face. There was plenty of time to move. Dorian had thought about this dozens of times. The Tevinter lord and his sworn enemy. He was quite sure there were several dirty troupes that played this exact scene, though the qunari always had paper horns and brown skin instead.

He had played out their first kiss many times. He had thought he and Bull would get it over with quickly. That they’d duck behind a building, smash into each other swords in battle, sparks –

Sparks would -

Dorian felt his own hand pulling down Bull’s jaw, the rough stubble there though he usually kept himself shaved. His lips were hot, the breath melting his resistance and the slow inexorable thrust of a tongue between his teeth. He swallowed against it, and Bull’s breath caught.

Dorian felt his mouth spread in a smile before Bull growled something beneath his breath and tumbled Dorian properly, over one of his big arms and began kissing him senseless.

A quick rap on the door, then Solas said: “If you don’t mind I –“

The three of them stared at each other in complete and frozen silence.

Without a word, Solas turned on his heel and exited.

Within seconds of his going, despite not wanting him to feel badly, Dorian and Bull had both dissolved into giggles.

“Oops,” said Dorian fondly.

“Oops,” agreed Bull. “I forgot to go gentle with you in your state.”

“Fuck off,” said Dorian lazily, pillowing his head onto both of his arms. “What state would that be?”

Bull stared at him with one eye blazing.

Dorian realized it literally described one of Varric’s terrible romance books: _smoldering._ He swallowed down his suddenly dry throat.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited to do that?”

“Oh I don’t know,” said Dorian casually, propping himself up on an elbow and hiding the wince. 

Bull cupped his face gently, and Dorian knew he had failed. 

“The day I met you, when you refused to unbend enough to pant along with the rest of us.”

“ _Me?_ You were trying to sprint up the slope to –“

“And all I could think was I would _make_ you pant for me.”

Dorian felt something hot and molten drop through the bottom of his stomach. Something lower responded. _Fuck._

The Iron Bull grinned smugly.

“You’re an asshole,” announced Dorian.

“Yeah. We knew that.”

Dorian lifted up an arm commandingly, and Bull carefully maneuvered his horns so they laid just behind Dorian’s head as he pillowed himself nearby.

“We did know that,” said Dorian condescendingly.

“Oh, you – “ Bull tried to turn his face but was hampered by Dorian’s sudden headlock.

“Yes?” asked Dorian brightly. “And go easy on me, I am _recovering_.”

Bull squinted an eye at him. “A brat, huh?” he said, his voice smoky.

Dorian couldn’t help the full body shiver and the smug satisfied little smile ratcheting its way up the side of Bull’s face. Dorian pushed at it with his palm.

“Stop that,” he commanded. “You have to entertain me while I’m confined to quarters.”

“And how long would that be, do you reckon?”

“Dorian?” Trevelyan’s voice.

Dorian slammed the door shut with a spell.

“Good call,” said the Iron Bull, but Dorian could hear the sleep threading his voice.

“Don’t get too excited,” said Dorian. “Have you slept at all this week?”

“Some,” the Iron Bull murmured. “Some.”

“Sleep,” said Dorian, and he almost used magic, but something held him back. “Or I’ll put a spell on you.”

The Iron Bull’s mouth curved up at the edges, and they both heard his silent reply as he snuggled more deeply into the covers.

Eventually, after watching him for a while, Dorian fell asleep too.


	7. The Winter Palace, Orlais

“There’s _what_?” asked Dorian in a heated whisper as Josephine grabbed his elbow.

“Shh!” she said, needlessly in Dorian’s opinion.

Trevelyan had been smart in her companions for the ball. She had brought him, for one, and Vivienne, meaning all those in know of The Game were present in the spider’s web. Moreover, she had brought all humans, even if one of them was from dreaded Tevinter. To his surprise, Trevelyan had also brought the Iron Bull. He knew it was a strategic maneuver; Bull was not only observant to a fault, but he presented a show of strength and muscle (personal bodyguard), diplomatic relations (the Qun), and was exotic enough that Dorian had been disturbed at how tight some of the men’s pants grew when he smiled easily at them.

“Looks like we’re going to dance,” said Dorian, sweeping a surprised Josephine into his arms.

“Oh, but I don’t –“

Dorian was a good dancer. It was a personal preference, rather than a forced skill. He had been drilled in fencing too, and was cheerfully terrible at it because he had no liking for it and it enraged his father to see his poor showing. They had stopped forcing Dorian to go to tourneys when he was ten out of sheer mortification that he always finished dead last or got himself disqualified. That had suited Dorian perfectly.

Dancing, however, was something Dorian enjoyed. His mother had danced with him when he was young in the gardens at twilight, breathlessly trying to remember the steps to grand lines when there was only the two of them. When Dorian had done something right, she had kissed his cheek out of pride, and he had swelled with satisfaction at doing something she loved. As he had gotten older, he found the intricacies of dancing rather dull. Once he had become proficient in a dozen moves, he came to expect the same patterns. People thought Dorian could pick up new dances remarkably fast, but the truth was that there were only so many things a foot could do after a kick or a turn, and he had pretty much guessed them by the end of the song.

“Dorian!”

“Yes, my Lady Montilyet?”

Josephine flushed under his amused gaze. She was never one for the limelight. She was more comfortable in the shadows organizing than Leliana was. The Nightingale flourished in The Game and was singing sweetly for a small crowd on the balcony. Someone had pressed a flower to her and she wore it in her hair, her red suit bringing out the apples in her cheeks, the pink in her lips, the shapes of her thighs.

“Dorian, this is _not_ the time to be dancing.”

“You know yourself the most intrigue happens here. In private words.”

“Not so private.”

“What would you suggest? If I take you behind the trellis, Trevelyan’s heart would break.”

Josephine flushed crimson beneath her eyes, making them sparkle from the overhead chandeliers.

“Oh,” teased Dorian cheerfully. “I see. Were you planning to ask her to dance at the end of the night?”

Josephine dropped her eyes, even as Dorian saw her jaw shift back and forth.

“Don’t be upset.” He kept his tone light. “I know she thinks you’re pretty.”

“Did she say that?”

“She looks at you often.”

“She looks at –“

“Yes, well, some people have no chance. But you…”

“Stop,” Josephine said, and this time there was bite on her tongue, her Antivan accent sharp with reproach. “You can be cruel when you want it.”

“But I am not being so now,” said Dorian, spinning her through a complex series of steps neither of them paid attention to. Dorian was pleased by this. Dancing was more fun with a good partner.

“Anyway, you said there was a –“

“ _Person_ ,” Josephine stressed. “The Inquisitor… _met_ …this person…upstairs.”

“Upstairs? Tsk tsk, she shouldn’t be up there. What’d she do? Climb the trellis by the fountain?”

Josephine was silent.

“You’re joking,” said Dorian flatly.

“The Iron Bull has been helping distract the guests."

“Oh I’ll bet he has,” said Dorian darkly.

They both paused as they capered foot to foot, clapped four times, then swung a different partner in a circle. Dorian winked at a flushing boy no more than sixteen. Too young, of course, but let him dream of Dorian. He was vain enough to know the boy would.

“This person is…no longer attending the talks with the Empress,” said Josephine calmly. “And we’re on a deadline. The Inquisitor is requesting you to find the Iron Bull and create a distraction.”

“A _distraction_?” asked Dorian delightedly.

“Easy. We’d ask Cullen to do it, but he’s petrified of women.”

“Not enough,” sighed Dorian dramatically. “Or I’d swoop him up.”

This time Josephine did hit him, smacking him on his shoulder loudly enough to draw amused glances. That was good, Dorian mused. Let them think they were having a lover’s spat. It would direct the gossip towards a sulking Josephine.

“Don’t be foolish, Dorian.”

“I’m not!” he protested, more loudly, following her cue.

“I can’t believe you’d go for another man like that!”

Dorian could tell the crowd was _loving_ this. He sighed, aggrieved. “I might ask someone else for the next reel.”

“Fine!” said Josephine, her voice sharp and slightly shrill.

From the corner of his eye, Dorian could see Cullen straighten off his elbow against one table, nervous at their loud exchange.

 _Idiot_ , he rolled his eyes in Cullen’s direction, and Josephine took the hint, wrenching herself from his grip and fleeing towards a bewildered Cullen who was already bending down, trying to see Josephine’s faux tears.

“May I?” came a hesitant voice.

Dorian turned. It was the youth, looking brilliant red and awkward, reflecting his face in all of Dorian’s many gold buttons. Dorian flashed him a debonair smile. The poor fool, but it was cementing the dramatics perfectly. He had to hand it to Josephine. Despite not liking the limelight, she was a quick thinker and fast on her feet in more ways than one.

“Of course.” Dorian bowed over one hand and swept him up – too close. He smiled at the boy, who looked absolutely mortified and duck-footed.

He wasn’t a very good dancer. But Dorian twirled and dipped him anyway, and left with a half-finished air kiss near his face while the boy made heart eyes after Dorian’s retreating figure. The Inquisition would certainly be talked about after this night, if for the gossip alone.

He found the Iron Bull in the long gallery, sprawled on one of the couches. There were dozens of people distinctly _not_ talking to him, who tried to block Dorian’s way as he threaded closer. An exhibit then.

Bull looked at his ease, but Dorian wasn’t sure if it were true. It had been a month since they had kissed, but aside from a few stolen kisses here and there, Dorian didn’t think they were headed in that direction. He couldn’t read Bull as easily as the qunari could read him.

“What’s up?” Bull asked, seeing Dorian’s face.

Dorian cursed Bull’s good eye and smiled with wide flattery. “I was thinking of taking a stroll in the garden after becoming overheated from dancing. Would you care to join me?”

To his credit, Bull caught to his tone at once. He gallantly offered his arm, which Dorian took with a thrill of secret pleasure. They had never casually held anything before. He tucked himself close to Bull’s wool jacket, and could feel the heat radiating through it. Bull’s hands were ovens against Dorian’s own, and he was surprised to feel cold air on his face as they exited and strolled as if uninterested towards a far balcony.

Dorian couldn’t see Trevelyan anywhere. He hoped she wasn’t doing something colossally stupid alone.

“Hey,” said the Iron Bull, and Dorian flinched unexpectedly. Bull froze, but didn’t pull away.

To Dorian’s astonishment, Bull had turned, arms still entwined to lean an elbow on the stone balustrade. The stars overhead were blazing brightly, and Dorian suddenly remembered the dark smallness of the enclosed tent in Emprise du Lion. He flushed in the starlight, and Bull pulled a gentle thumb across the skin of his cheek.

“Trevelyan found a body,” whispered Dorian, as Bull continued his – was it _faux?_ – seduction. He had leaned in, tasting the breath from Dorian’s mouth while Dorian’s heart fluttered in his neck.

Bull’s eye fastened to it and then he leaned a careful thumb in the hollow of Dorian’s throat. Dorian went a crimson to match his uniform and Bull chuckled darkly.

“You’re so responsive, do you know that?”

Dorian couldn’t speak.

“Those expressive eyes.”

Dorian wanted to say something very witty and clever and smart. Instead, all his mind could think was in ridiculously inventive curse words that Bull was going to kiss him and Dorian would lose his brain in a puddle of slop and Trevelyan would die because it would be unlikely either of them would make it to her side for the next hour.

“So,” said Dorian, and his voice trembled embarrassingly.

Bull’s smile widened.

“You’re insufferable,” and Dorian couldn’t help the sniping tone, despite the façade Bull had so carefully crafted.

Bull didn’t look displeased. “Okay good, I thought you might be overacting.”

“Yes,” Dorian said. _Of course I was. You don’t make me go weak at the knees, you’re of the Qun. You’re Tevinter’s enemy. You’re the bedtime story I was told to frighten me to be obedient. And Maker’s ass if I don’t want you to fuck me into the floor._

The Iron Bull dipped his head down so that he and Dorian’s lips were inches apart and stared into Dorian’s eyes. Dorian knew it was impossible but he could feel his pupils blowing open wide under Bull’s creeping half smile. 

“Boss wants…”

“We’re to make a distraction. In the main ballroom. Vivienne will exit first. Then we should…follow,” he barely managed the last word because Bull’s hand had thrilled up along his spine to cup the back of his head.

“Careful of the hair,” he said, trying for playful.

It failed utterly and Dorian felt something swirling up into his face like dye dropped in water, curling beneath his skin and making his lips part like some sort of idiot. He felt as ungainly and as inexperienced as the boy he had just danced with.

“A distraction,” murmured the Iron Bull. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” said Dorian, and was proud his voice didn’t tremble. “Josephine and I just danced together. We left it rather a mess.”

“Lord Pavus,” growled the Iron Bull in a way that made Dorian wish suddenly his coat was a foot longer. “Are you asking me to dance?”

Dorian forced his locked knees to bend as he staggered back a few steps, then bowed foppishly over an extended hand.

“I _am_ asking you to dance,” he said in a theatrical carrying tone that still conveyed the emotions he was trying to hit: nervousness (not feigned), breathlessness (also not feigned), and something challenging and hard in his voice, daring Bull to take his bait.

Whispers were pinging electrically around the garden, some people drifting group to group to smile and pretend to greet one another as if they hadn’t been talking perfectly happily within feet for the last ten minutes without any notice of each other.

This time Dorian held out his arm to Bull and Bull tucked his own through Dorian’s.

They walked sedately to the double glass doors.

“Dorian, are you okay?” The Iron Bull murmured in hardly a breath, his eye scanning ahead of them as if navigating the best route.

Dorian appreciated immensely that Bull instinctively understood the situation and how to play The Game.

“What?” Dorian asked, his smile wide and triumphant as they navigated the long gallery again, neither hurrying. Dorian thought he caught a glimpse of Trevelyan’s red tail coat as they entered the ballroom and he glanced up a blue flight of stairs.

What was she up to?

Damn, they needed out, and fast. He turned to the Iron Bull, bowing again over his hand. “Shall we?”

From the corner, he could see Leliana moving between three identically dressed women, smiling and dropping half curtsies even in her breeches. She raked an uninterested gaze over him and Bull, clearly taking stock of where they were. Josephine had returned to her pillar, letting it block her from most views, talking quietly with a masked woman Dorian had heard was her sister, though they hadn’t been introduced. It was impossible to tell if it was the truth, either, because so little of the girl’s features showed through her outfit. Josephine caught him looking and rolled her neck, pointing with her chin back at the Iron Bull. Belatedly Dorian turned, taking up his hand in his own as they waited with the other couples at the edge of the floor for the next reel.

“What?” he asked suddenly, his brain finally processing.

“I said,” Bull breathed as he led Dorian into the dance floor to find their places. “Are you okay?”

“Do you know how to dance?” Dorian asked instead, suddenly seeing a gaping flaw in their plan.

“No.”

“Oh, this will be a very good distraction then."

The Iron Bull glared at him, and Dorian smiled cheekily.

“Right foot, feet together, right foot, feet together. Right stomp stomp stomp stomp, turn on the heel, counter clockwise, and hands together, back and forth, hands together, back and forth –“

Teaching Bull to dance took up most of Dorian’s brain. He forgot he and the Iron Bull were supposed to be putting on a show, or seduction, or whatever it was. Instead he concentrated on the moves, the turns, the lifts.

The Iron Bull missed all of them with a rueful grin that wasn’t quite covering how frustrated he was.

“I’m terrible at this."

“I’ve also had years of practice,” Dorian assured him. “You’re fine.”

Bull considered, and at the next lift he bodily threw Dorian five feet in the air while Dorian bit his lip on a clamped cry.

There was some applause as Bull easily caught him, and Bull’s smug smile as he began to muddle through the reel again made Dorian laugh.

“Well you’ve certainly got their attention.”

“As have you. Half the people in the room are in love with you tonight.”

“I only care about the men.”

“Only?” said the Iron Bull, his voice edged.

Dorian frowned but then Bull threw him again, higher this time, and he accentuated the surprise with some flourishes to another successful round of applause. If he really had come with Josephine, Dorian would have felt the biggest ass alive to be so flaunting of his partner. That meant their distraction was going perfectly.

“Trevvy wants us to meet her downstairs, at the entrance to the servants quarters after this dance,” Dorian managed in one entire breath as Bull lowered him. Let the people think he was saying something filthy.

Bull certainly acted the part. He grinned wickedly in response. Dorian knew the grin was genuine; that was more Bull’s kind of party.

“Should I bring my gear?” Bull asked easily, openly. And another couple swirling past gasped at the boldness of the question. Orlais, like Tevinter, had no shortage of play houses. Or special requests.

Dorian struggled not to laugh. Instead he nodded, as if awed, and he and the Iron Bull continued dancing without words, pretending to become enamored of each other.

Dorian made mistakes first on purpose, stumbling or forgetting a step when the Iron Bull ran a finger beneath his chin. But his mistakes became genuine the more places Bull placed his burning hands. Dorian had never known so many parts of him could be so sensitive – and in a public place.

Bull pressed the inside of his elbows with warm thumbs like brands even through the wool. He kept them there as they went down the line while Dorian’s head pumped with some drug he didn’t recognize. Bull worked his fingers under the lining of Dorian’s coat, resting his hands on the top bones of Dorian’s hips. Dorian used every ounce of strength he had not to let his hips jerk in Bull’s teasing grip.

Bull was trying for it too, smiling wickedly at the silent game and squeezing. Even once, Bull’s hand cupping his ass as he let him down, the fingers moving _just_ enough that Dorian knew it was no accident. By the time the reel ended his face was flaming, and he looked flustered enough to exit less than gracefully, his arm still tucked in a smug Bull’s.

“You didn’t _have_ to do that,” Dorian breathed out once they were in the statue hall.

“I know,” said Bull, running his tongue on the inside of his teeth as if checking for blood. “I didn’t have to.”

“You ass.”

The Iron Bull glanced around, looking for all the world like he was still playing the part of seducer. To Dorian’s surprise he quickly backed Dorian against a marble plinth, a cold shock to his whole body, and kissed Dorian so quickly and messily Dorian was gasping for air.

“Bull,” he warned, pushing on Bull’s shoulders. It was strange to feel cloth over them, but his heat still beamed through. “Hey. I- I have to get my – I have to get dressed.”

The Iron Bull looked _very_ smug.

They slipped into the double doors of the servants’ entrance and met Vivienne and Trevelyan, who were waiting just inside, already changed out of their formal wear. Trevelyan had her cheese shield. Vivienne was _not_ rolling her eyes in skintight white.

“You took long enough,” the Inquisitor said accusingly. “What were you doing?”

Dorian opened his mouth. How to explain that there was no feasible way he could take off his clothes at the moment?

“Dancing,” said Bull.

“There’s no time to change,” Vivienne said gracefully. “We should be going. Here’s your staff.” She handed it to Dorian who thought he might fall on his knees in gratitude. Either that or his mind had been extremely preoccupied with falling on his knees.

The Iron Bull grunted in disappointment, but followed Trevelyan into the kitchens. The next hour sufficiently calmed Dorian’s racing heart to concentrate on the task at hand. Additionally the Winter Palace was very interesting. Dorian enjoyed the winding impossibility of the vine-covered walkways, full of dead ends and secluded lover’s corners. His brain helpfully tried to catalogue some for later even as he blushed in the darkness.

Trevelyan was in her element far more here than she ever would be on a Hinterlands farm. Born and bred to the life, she was poised and in command as she questioned assassins, servants, and one very strangely bound and gagged man spread eagled on a bed. Vivienne and Dorian used magic to scent out the halla keys to open doors, and at the end of the evening, Vivienne even remarked:

“Very well done, my dear," which astoundingly high praise from the enchanter.

Trevelyan glowed with pleasure, even as she unpacked her formal wear and wrapped the high collared white shirt around her body, letting Dorian help her with the ascot as she shrugged into the red military coat.

“You look good, boss,” said Bull approvingly, and Dorian could see the truth glinting in his eye.

Dorian felt a stupid wave of jealousy. Bull hadn’t said that to him. Dorian felt sick. The whole dance then, was the show. The act to surprise people. He had told Bull he didn’t have to, but Bull – he –

“Are you ready for this?” asked Trevelyan, finger combing her short ponytail out.

“Of course,” said Vivienne, unruffled. She left her white dress on. Dorian knew she preferred it to the suit, and an outfit change from Madame de Fer was practically expected.

More to aggravate Vivienne than any other reason, Trevelyan kept her cheese shield on and strapped her sword to a hip. Ceremonial swords had fallen out of fashion in Orlais years ago – it was a knife country – but Fereldan and visiting dignitaries were given the right to wear them so long as they were decorative.

“Let’s go then.”

Trevelyan breathed out a long sigh of relief, and Dorian followed suit as they exited. He could feel more than see the concerned tilt of Bull’s shoulders, the way a hand came up to try to guide Dorian by the small of the back – neatly avoided – and the shadows of his horns running along the floor tilting consideringly.

Dorian felt a fool.

The Iron Bull was _qunari_. And worse than any Tal-Vashoth, he was _of the Qun._ There was no reason Dorian could ever hope to hold more of him than stolen kisses. Maybe Bull would fuck him, if he asked nicely. He certainly fucked everyone else, and left himself open to overtures from the rest of the Inner Circle. It was something Trevelyan found amusing rather than serious, and something that horrified Cassandra and confused Cullen.

But the interest sparking in Bull’s eye? Because Dorian was funny. Because he was mildly good-looking. Because they were friends. Because Bull didn’t want him to die.

A horrible thought occurred to Dorian. Was it… _pity?_

That would be worst of all.

Dorian beelined for Josephine, leaving a confused Bull to stand with Cullen. They watched the Inquisitor dance with Florianne. Trevelyan was a proficient dancer as well, and took to the leading roll easily.

“She has an incredible ass,” Dorian observed as the Inquisitor’s coat flew up against tight breeches.

“I know,” sighed Josephine, and Dorian bumped her shoulder with his.

Josephine smiled slightly. “It won’t happen,” she said. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Half the inquisition is sleeping with each other,” Dorian pointed out. “All alone on a mountaintop? You aren’t a saint, Josie.”

“Sometimes I feel like one,” said Josephine glumly. “I think perhaps I shall be burned at the stake when the Chantry renounces the Inquisition.”

“Buck up, we may get out of this palace yet.”

Josephine smiled, then tilted her head into Dorian’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said simply. “You were someone I counted on tonight, and you performed admirably.”

“Performed admirably?” quipped Dorian. “My, I sound like I’m receiving a performance review and have somewhat missed the mark.”

“No one thinks that,” said Josephine, easily picking the thread of truth and insecurity woven in the jest.

Dorian cursed himself. He sometimes forgot there were those who very good at The Game.

“Remind me never to play cards with you.”

Josephine beamed. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Ah shit,” said Dorian at the same time.

Cullen had started running for the stage, his long legs barely touching marble. Trevelyan had not pulled her sword, but Florianne was backing towards a surprised but unflappable Celene. There was the sound of crashing glass.

“That’s my cue,” said Dorian regretfully.

“Yes, you’d better,” agreed Josephine, her words barking at his heels as he joined the group sprinting after Trevelyan. Vivienne marked their exit with frost on the ground as both a flair of showmanship and a clever way to slow any pursuit.

Dorian fought with a single mindedness that let him mostly ignore the swirling uncertainty inside him. Maker’s end, when was the last time he had felt this whirling and conflicted? Not for years. Not since he was young and reckless.

An arrow nearly pierced Dorian’s ear. He spun reflexively into the same reel step as he had danced earlier.

Well, _less_ reckless.

With Florianne dead, Dorian was given a breather.

“It’s best if you made yourselves scarce,” Leliana instructed as they huddled near the balcony where Trevelyan was having her confrontation with Celene and Gaspard. Dorian knew she hated confrontation and wished he could be there for moral support.

“No problem,” said Bull. “Leaving tomorrow?”

Leliana nodded. “Are you able to find the guest houses from the main gates? I think it’d be best if the ball was over for you.”

“And you?” Dorian asked, feeling peevish.

“Vivienne and I will stay, and do damage control. Josephine is –“

“Yes,” agreed Dorian unthinkingly, and Leliana dimpled at him.

“I’m sorry. When I told Cullen to leave you would have thought I put wings on his boots. He quickly went to find troops or something to do. He’s been fidgety and bored for hours.”

Dorian thought about the group of sighing women surrounding Cullen and rolled his eyes. “I’m sure he was.”

“We’ll get out of the fray,” said Bull cheerfully. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.” He tucked Dorian’s limp arm through his own elbow and led him down a set of stairs, back through the servants quarters. Dorian knew where they were going before they got there, and his eyes burned with mortification.

Bull led him with surprising skill through the winding maze to a lover’s alcove in the vine covered walkways.

“I thought you’d want-“ he began, then stopped as Dorian pulled his hand away too quickly. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” Dorian said, something like brightness and something like clouds in his voice.

By Bull’s surprised expression it was scrawled across his face as well.

“Are you hurt? Did you –“

“I’m fine.”

“You’re-“

“I’m _fine_.”

“You always say you’re fine.”

“But you can read my face. You know I’m not in pain,” Dorian snapped.

The Iron Bull was silent a moment. “I don’t know that,” he said slowly.

Dorian felt his eyes flood with tears and he looked away bitterly.

“Dorian-“ Bull tugged on his arm. There was a stone bench near a hedge at the dead end.

“I’m sorry,” Dorian said, his voice poisoned with self-hatred. “I know this isn’t what you wanted.”

“I…I’m just…confused…”

“So am I.”

Bull led Dorian to the bench, and Dorian sat down. Very gently - and Dorian hated that Bull had to feel like he needed to be gentle - Bull sat down, as far from him as the lover’s bench would allow.

“I thought you liked dancing.”

“I did,” said Dorian, his voice subdued and troubled.

“And we...well, fuck. I’m not good at this. I’m good with just saying what I mean.”

“You do perfectly well.”

“But I don’t want to dance around this.”

“Ha, I see what you did.”

“I’m serious.”

Dorian was silent a moment. “You want me to say what I’m thinking?”

“Yes. In the Qun, we have to be honest at all times, even when it’s complicated. It just makes things easier.”

“Easier,” laughed Dorian hollowly. “Right.”

“Dorian.”

“I…” Dorian hesitated, then looked up. “Fuck it. I like you. And I thought you liked me.”

“I do.”

“But you like everyone.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And it feels shitty because I feel like a fool and a child and –“

Dorian tried to duck out of the way of the kiss, but this time Bull held his jaw in his hands.

“I like you more than I like everyone,” Bull said huskily when he drew back for breath.

“Well,” said Dorian, attempting levity around the pinching pressure of Bull’s fingers. “That’s very comforting, I suppose. But you’re qunari.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” said Bull dryly, dropping his hands.

“And this is –“

“Impossible?”

“Limited.”

“So? Isn’t it fun to push those limits?”

“I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

The Iron Bull shrugged his shoulders. “Eh. I don’t know. I’m always in trouble.”

Out of the windows the strains of a new reel floated down on the night breeze. It really was very cold. Dorian could see his breath fogging in front of him.

“You know,” said Bull, apropos of nothing. “That time you almost died.”

“Which time?” But Dorian knew. The cold air. The overhead shading of the vines like a tent cover.

“In Emprise du Lion.”

“What about it?”

“I thought you were going to die.”

“Yes.”

“And in the Fallow Mire. I thought you did.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Thanks.”

“What I mean is that I thought you _died_. And I was…I was messed up about it. The way I would have been if one of the Chargers died.”

Dorian felt something between pride he had risen so far in Bull’s esteem and frustration it wasn’t higher.

“And…it struck me…that I really care about you.”

Dorian looked sideways at the trellis, feeling a green leaf between cold fingers. He knew he was being childish.

The silence stretched.

The Iron Bull refused to break it, and Dorian half smiled. Instead, he stood and bowed over his hand, noticing the flickering war of emotions on Bull’s face. Fear. Anger. Sadness.

“Sir, would you care to dance?”

Bull couldn't hide his surprise, even as he tried. He cocked a head. “Here? There’s no room.”

“In the courtyard, if we can find our way out. Our dance was…for others.”

Bull’s face softened and Dorian felt a bright smile edging out from beneath his cheeks despite his affectation to remain serious.

He led Bull by the hand to the flagstones. The stars winked brightly and one of the upper floor windows was cracked to let in airflow in the overheated candlelit ballroom. From there strains of music drifted down.

“You know,” said Bull as they squared up. “I still don’t know how to dance.”

“That’s okay,” said Dorian. “Just follow my lead.”

Bull did surprisingly well. At first he stumbled, but something from the previous time clicked and he was able to do a few steps strung together before a mistake.

“This isn’t the right dance,” he said after a moment.

Dorian’s smile widened. “How can you tell?”

“It’s not in time.”

“Yes, but this one is ours.”

Bull pulled Dorian roughly a few steps closer, and they both slowed, Dorian careful not to tuck his head against Bull’s chest like he wanted to out of fear of being too cliché.

“Before, with the hands. Too much?”

“Not at all. It was a good show.”

“I meant for you.”

“Oh.” Dorian paused. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You seemed upset after.”

“Something else.”

“Tell me.”

“I was…I was worried it was for the show only.”

“Are you saying I finally got to put my hand on your perfect ass for the look of the thing?”

Dorian stumbled and the Iron Bull laughed as he found the paces again.

“Perfect?” asked Dorian lightly.

“Rear guard means more than one thing.”

This time Dorian smacked Bull lightly on the chest, and the Iron Bull grinned.

“You filthy mercenary.”

Bull reeled Dorian in by his arms until he was holding him by the elbows. There was a breathless moment when Dorian turned his face up – how annoying! He was quite tall in his own right – for the kiss. But Bull didn’t kiss him. He only looked at him, so closely that Dorian’s eyes almost crossed staring back. Then he rested his forehead against Dorian’s and smiled in the secret inches between their noses.

“I can be extremely filthy.”

Dorian flushed in the moonlight and the Iron Bull grinned as he carefully brought one hand down the side of Dorian’s neck and let the hot brand of it rest over his collarbone, his thumb resting innocently in the hollow of Dorian’s throat.

They both were silent as it pounded beneath the touch.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Bull huskily.

Dorian considered.

“Sucking your dick.”

The Iron Bull choked, his fingers dropping off Dorian’s shoulder in numb shock.

“Hey!”

Dorian, smiling superciliously, turned away.

“Hey! Dorian! What the _fuck_! You can’t say that and – where are you going?”

Dorian was climbing the wide sweep of white stairs upwards. He could hear Bull coming after him and with heart-pounding thrill somewhere between lust and dread Dorian began running. His foot slipped and he went sprawling.

To his surprise, he didn’t hit the marble. He was aware then of the hot hand holding him up where the Iron Bull’s wool coated forearm had snaked around him and caught him.

“ _Damn it_ ,” Dorian seethed.

“Caught you,” said the Iron Bull quietly.

Dorian staggered back to his feet, but Bull still had him round the waist. Turning reluctantly in the arm, Dorian looked down at Bull – finally! Stairs to change his height.

“You’re a brat,” said Bull calmly.

“You love it.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t.”

“Are you going to-“

“After a line like that? Of course I'm going to.”

“Ah. And should we tell the Inquisitor?”

“You don’t like women.”

“So?”

“I didn’t think you’d want to invite her.”

Dorian smacked Bull again, but he was too slow.

The Iron Bull yanked his wrist and pinned it behind his back, holding him in place with his other arm. Between them, Dorian felt himself press against his captor.

“Oh, ropes then?” Bull asked, as pleasantly as if he were asking if Dorian enjoyed mayonnaise on a sandwich.

“Fuck."

Then Bull kissed him and it was messy and Bull’s tongue was hot on his and Dorian knew that Bull had backed up a few steps to the stone balcony and leaned against it and guided Dorian’s hips with his warms hands to straddle his thigh and Dorian was leaning in and Bull was so tall but making himself smaller for _him_ and –

“Would you care to dance?”

They sprang apart guilty as teenagers to flatten themselves on the stone wall of the stairs. Dorian craned his neck, looking up. He could see long fingered hands hung over the railing. The voice was Josephine’s.

“Oh,” the hands withdrew. Trevelyan. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to!” Josephine said quickly.

The Iron Bull scowled and Dorian threw a quick thumbs down back. They grinned at each other conspiratorially.

“No, it’s not that. It’s been a lot today.”

“We can remain in the garden if you wish.”

Waggling eyebrows from Bull. A thumbs up from Dorian.

“Or if you prefer to be left alone – “

Two thumbs down. Dorian wished he could convey his thoughts: _Josephine! Pursue her!_

“No,” said Trevelyan, too quickly.

A white grin in the darkness.

Dorian used his elbows to nudge liberally and was rewarded by the white smile disappearing with a soft grunt _._

“We can stand here…”

Dorian made a face. Then he and the Iron Bull would have to stand just below them, pressed up to the stone, hoping neither of the women would look straight down.

“You know what?” said Trevelyan. “I haven’t seen you dance.”

“You missed my dance with Dorian.”

“ _You_ danced with _Dorian_?”

Dorian nudged Bull again at his silent snicker.

“We were creating a distraction.”

“I’ll say. Are you any good?”

“At dancing?”

“Or at distracting Dorian.”

“Better at one than the other, I’m afraid.”

“Such a shame, I was going to ask you to dance.”

“No! Inquisitor! I mean!” Josephine was easily flustered, a fact Trevelyan used too often.

The Inquisitor laughed and they heard a soft slipper scuff as Josephine made a scowling noise in the back of her throat.

“Oh! That’s very funny."

“Well? Do you?”

“I believe I asked you first.”

“How’s this: on three.”

“One, two – “

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

There was a moment’s silence and Bull and Dorian beamed at each other in sheer pride.

The sound of feet on stone, clasping hands softly in the dark, the swish of a glass door softly clicking shut.

“Come on,” said Bull, “We should go back to the guest houses.”

Dorian felt a prickle of anticipation in his belly. “Right.”

“And I’m one up, you know.”

Dorian rolled his neck on his shoulders as they emerged at the top of the stairs. “For what?”

“Catching you.”

“That hardly counted.”

“It counts.”

“You’re stretching it pretty thin. This way you could trip me and catch me.”

“Nope. Fair catch. Fair play. You’re just sore because you’re losing.”

“Sore, huh?” said Dorian, and opened his mouth.

“Dorian! There you are. An escort, perhaps?” Vivienne’s voice was loud. Carrying. Warning.

Dorian sighed, deflating a little. He threw the Iron Bull an apologetic grimace Vivienne politely pretended not to see.

“Of course, Madame de Fer,” he said, equally loudly.

Vivienne threw him her infamous cool glance, but offered her other arm to the Iron Bull.

“Sir.”

Bull’s smile was a foot wide. “Ma’am.”

Vivienne sniffed, letting them flank her as they meandered sedately down the grand stair towards the fountain and out the gate.

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “Quite so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...there's only two chapters today because they're both...very long.


	8. Dragon Island, the Storm Coast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> earning that explicit ;) sorry this was mostly done yesterday but i wasn't feeling the smut so i rewrote it

“Holy shit, holy _shit_.”

Dorian smiled to himself even as he watched the Iron Bull’s large corded shoulders row the small boat. He didn’t even ask anyone else to take a turn, pulling through the choppy waves with a kind of frenetic energy that belied his control.

“Bull,” said Trevelyan. “Don’t get too...too excited.”

“Boss, holy shit,” said Bull, his one pupil blown wide like a cat seeing something it very much wants to eviscerate. “A _dragon,_ boss. An island where a dragon lives. And we’re _going_ there.”

“And we’re going to kill it,” Cassandra added sourly. The rain was dripping down her short hair, plastering it to her head. “And I thought slogging through dwarven ruins was bad enough. You should have taken Varric.”

“He doesn’t care a whit for that sort of thing,” said Dorian mildly. He had long given up on not being wet. The sea spray from the waves blasted along in gusts, the rain was an ever-constant sleet, and the bottom of the boat was filled with water under the weight of Bull and the warriors’ gear.

Trevelyan was huddled miserably next to Cassandra. Every few minutes she would sneeze behind one hand. And it wasn’t a cute tiny sneeze. Every sneeze nearly propelled her backwards into the ocean so that Cassandra had to grab her jerkin to keep her seated.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Dorian asked.

Trevelyan glared at him through red-rimmed eyes. “Alluhgies,” she sniffed.

“A water allergy, perhaps?”

“Shuddup.”

“You’re sick,” said Cassandra decisively. “Do you have a temperature?”

Suddenly Trevelyan was childish and unruly, ducking and weaving Cassandra’s hand. “No I don’t! Leabe me alobe.”

“Stop rocking the boat,” Bull growled, and Dorian felt his stomach plummet with a familiar swooping attraction. “I’ve been with this Inquisition for almost a year and this is the most fun I’ve gotten to have. And don’t get me wrong. Adamant was a lot of fun.”

Adamant was two weeks before, and Dorian sourly thought of it as the planning, travel, and time that took away from what he had _thought_ would immediately happen with Bull after the Winter Palace. Every single glance exchanged between them was another feather on a tipping scale.

“See?” Trevelyan said to Cassandra, holding her dripping nose up high. “Bis is Bull’s day.”

“You’re being a child,” said Cassandra.

“No I’m not.”

“Then let me see if you have a fever.”

“Dorian!”

“I’m not going to suck your heat out of your body again.”

“Again?” Cassandra whirled on him. “Earlier? When I checked?”

“I told her it was a one time thing,” said Dorian, grinning cheekily.

“How dare you patronize her!”

“How dare _you_ patrobize me,” returned Trevelyan, and then giggled.

“You’re all mad,” said Cassandra faintly, staring around the boat. “We’re going to a remote island to get seriously injured with the only Inquisitor who’s probably extremely ill and we're not likely to make it out alive.”

“Oh come on,” said Dorian grandly. “You’re only saying that because no one ever has.”

Cassandra threw up her hands in despair, but did not ask Bull to turn the boat around. Instead she pointed. “What’s that?”

Dorian and Trevelyan turned to look even as Bull chuckled under his breath. Quick as a snake, Cassandra clapped her hand to Trevelyan’s forehead and made a disgruntled noise. “She’s burning up!”

“No fair, you cheated.”

“Yes, I figured if I can’t beat you, I might as well join you.”

“That’s the spirit,” Bull beamed.

“Of course, that will be printed on my headstone,” finished Cassandra sourly.

“No, we’ll all be dead,” Dorian pointed out reasonably. “No one will know you said it. They’ll probably put Seeker Pentaghast. She was really cool and really mean.”

“Hey!”

“Really really _really_ mean,” confirmed Trevelyan, drooping over Cassandra’s lap. “Pet my head.”

Cassandra began wiping Trevelyan’s plastered hair from her face before catching herself. “No! You are not a dog.”

Trevelyan whined and Cassandra relented.

“You shouldn’t be out! It’s not safe.”

“You know bat else isn’t safe?”

“If you say ‘your ass’ I will throw you overboard.”

“Okay, neber mind.”

Both Dorian and Bull sniggered.

“Angle a bit to your left,” Dorian suggested to Bull.

Bull obligingly pulled.

“Your other left.”

The Iron Bull glared.

“The side you’re blind on.”

In Cassandra’s lap, Trevelyan giggled weakly.

“Andraste preserve us,” fumed Cassandra.

The boat ground to shore on a gravel beach, and Dorian hopped out, feeling cold ocean water sink over the tops of his boots and gush inwards. He yelped.

“It’s cold,” Bull observed. “Watch out.”

“Get out and help me.”

Bull obligingly swung out a leg. His hands were actually trembling as they both hauled the boat up the shoreline.

“Excited?” Dorian asked.

The Iron Bull looked at him with a sort of blazing ferocity that made Dorian’s stomach drop something liquid and molten through his intestines. He wanted to wrap his arms around it or dance in place or arch his hips to give it room, but instead he swallowed, adding to the weight.

Cassandra splashed out after them, hauling the Inquisitor by one elbow as she staggered through the water. Trevelyan held her sword straight up over her head with one hand to keep it from getting wet. It was completely pointless, of course, as it was raining, but she let it fall to the earth and touch the ground as she gained the beach.

“I christen thee…dragon…island.”

The Iron Bull took one look at Trevelyn and yanked her by both arms up onto his back.

“Free ride today,” he said cheerfully.

“Yay!” said Trevelyan, brandishing the weapon close to Bull’s good eye.

“Uh-“ said Dorian.

“Why start now?” asked Cassandra snidely. “Come on. I’ll go first.”

“Rear guard,” called Bull, and Dorian was left to walk between them, his cheeks burning knowing that with every step that parted his robes Bull’s eyes would be glued to his ass. He wished he had worn more form fitting leggings, but supposed the rain would plaster them on nicely.

It wasn’t a very long walk. Ten minutes after landing the beach they had gained the plateau, and on it crouched an enormous dragon.

“A Vinsomer,” said Cassandra, her voice tinged with the first brush of respectful awe.

Trevelyn dropped off of Bull's back, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

“A what?” asked Dorian.

“A type of high dragon. It was also the last dragon slain by my ancestor Caspar Pentaghast. It’s part of Nevarran poetry. They say its breath alone can cause thunderstorms and its wings hurricanes.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“Holy.” Bull said with remarkable calm. “Shit.”

“We should come up with a plan of attack,” said Dorian. “You said thunderstorms? So it uses lightn-“

But he stopped, because the Iron Bull had screamed a war cry and started sprinting towards the enormous foe.

“Fuck it,” said Trevelyan in a flat voice, and went pelting after him.

“No!” cried Cassandra, tearing after her.

“Oh sure,” said Dorian, sighing. “This’ll go great.”

A huge gout of lightning exploded from the mouth of the Vinsomer. Dorian watched it bracket Bull and jerk him off the ground. He went down in a smoking heap.

Dorian felt something in his brain lurch roughly from one switch to another. Without thinking about it, knowing only the elemental negative forces of magic, he leveled a spirit attack against the dragon that sent it shrieking back, and Dorian threw a shield bubble over Bull’s body as he fade-stepped to get to him.

The Iron Bull’s fingers were twitching even as he was unconscious, and Dorian breathed out between relief and rage.

“Drink this,” he told the unconscious Bull. He tipped the regeneration potion into his mouth, wasting precious seconds and letting Trevelyn get swept by a huge barbed tail fifteen feet to the left.

Bull blinked, coughing soot off his tongue.

“Either be smarter about fighting this thing, or we’ll have words later,” Dorian growled, and then ran to the Inquisitor to help her up.

Dorian felt like he was the only one actually _thinking_ in the fight. The dragon fought with tooth and claw and tail; it beat small whirlwinds (not quite Cassandra’s hurricanes) with its wings. But even more than that was the lightning damage, which it used liberally.

Dorian left the first set of problems to those on the ground. Let them hack and slash and wind up for hamstringing a leg. He started raising spirits, sending psychic damage and purple waves of hazy fire to smash into the dragon.

The dragon noticed. Of course it would. There were three annoying ankle biters that didn’t matter and one real threat. Dorian figured he should feel proud, but he only felt dread. And wet. The rain was cold and he was very wet. His thighs were chafing the inside of his leather armor and a cold trickle of rainwater had found the perfect fold between his shoulder and the back of his neck. His clothes were stuck to him like they had been glued on, and every step made him almost slip on the wet stone.

He popped another lyrium potion.

There was a crunching sound as Bull brought his greataxe down. It didn’t quit sever a toe, but it clearly did do some real pain, because the dragon whipped her head around and took another bite at him.

Dorian fade-stepped closer, throwing up a shield that slammed Bull out of the way more than it caught him.

“Still counts!” he yelled over the rain. “That’s _twice!_ ”

The Iron Bull smiled a white smile even across the grey haze of the rain and the stone and the after effects of the lightning.

“Thanks!” he called happily. “Having fun?”

“Maker’s breath,” fumed Dorian. Bull was mad. Completely and unutterably mad.

To Dorian, the fight felt very long indeed. He had no real sense of time, but could tell it had been more than thirty minutes. He wondered if they were closing on an hour. Fighting hard for minute-long skirmishes was one thing, but endurance fighting for battles took a different strength entirely. Trevelyan was tiring, and weak. They were down to their last health potion, and he watched as Cassandra urged her to drink it.

The Vinsomer did not look well, but it also looked spitting mad.

Laughing maniacally, the Iron Bull actually jumped on the slippery hide of the dragon and caught hold of two spikes.

“What are you doing?” screamed Dorian.

The Iron Bull’s muscles heaved from even this distance and he pulled himself straight up, his boots scrabbling for purchase on slick scales.

Desperately Dorian began to weave fire mines he knew would do nothing but startle the beast, seeding them under its feet even as he contemporaneously wove another spell. Multi-weaving was an expertise few mages had, and Dorian was smug about it. He had been a little put out, therefore, to find both Solas and Vivienne were also proficient. He supposed it made sense: the Inner Circle were all exceptional in their own way. For instance, Sera was _exceptionally_ crass.

The mines went off and Dorian pulled his mind back to the fight as the dragon reared angrily.

“Don’t take off,” Dorian muttered under his breath, changing the trajectory of the mind blast to force the head downwards. “Don’t take off.” If it took off and Bull fell, no potion in the world could save him.

He cast the blast. The beast roared and opened a full throat of lightning straight at the huddled forms of Cassandra and Trevelyan, who scrambled out of the way.

The last health potion then. It was now or never.

“Attack!” Dorian called, his voice ragged and desperate over the storm’s winds.

The two women rushed forward, each on a side. Dorian reached for another lyrium potion and then used precious seconds to look down and check when he couldn't find one. He was out.

“Bull!” he called. Bull didn’t hear him. For a teetering second Dorian wavered. It would be easier to just cast…

“Bull!”

The Iron Bull had gained the spine. He was running along the slick scales as quickly as he was able. Cassandra and Trevelyan were yelling for the dragon’s attention, and Dorian’s voice was lost in the crowd. But somehow, even then, Bull heard him. He looked up, flashing a wide white smile across the distance, and Dorian’s heart was breaking as he screamed.

“I’m tapped out!”

Bull’s smile dropped from his face. He heaved his greataxe above his shoulders.

Dorian saw the great eye roll back.

“NO!” he screamed.

The inhale, and the familiar static crackle.

Dorian cast.

He did something he wasn’t proud of and he did something he had never wanted the Inquisitor to see. But beyond the ridge Dorian felt a deer. He drained it dry of one last vital burst of magic, small enough to hit the dragon harmlessly but in the eye to dazzle it. Long enough for Bull to bring the greataxe down and –

The resounding clap of thunder above was so fortuitously timed Dorian wasn’t sure what had happened until he was staring at the head laying on the ground.

The dragon was dead, and Bull was sliding down the neck and running to Dorian.

Dorian realized Bull hadn’t understood. Hadn’t known what he had done, but the Inquisitor and Cassandra were kneeling on the ground, Cassandra giving her a tongue lashing that Dorian could only guess at while Trevelyan beamed up into her face like a sunflower.

What was Bull doing? In front of everyone?

Dorian forced his legs forward. He hadn’t realized he had rooted his feet to the ground for stability, and so it was a wrench to pull them free, causing him to stagger. And then Bull was there, his desperate arms gripping Dorian, holding him up, Bull burying his face into Dorian’s neck.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” Bull was growling into his ear. “I told you I had it. You-“

“I didn’t,” gasped Dorian. His ribs were protesting. “Bull! I – I didn’t!”

But it didn’t matter.

Bull was kissing him and he was kissing him in the rain. Dorian felt somewhere his fourteen year old romantic heart bursting open in absurd happiness as he read this exact scene curled in a window seat.

“But-“ Dorian said, breaking away.

The Iron Bull was strong. Dorian sometimes forgot because he was never showy with his strength. But now, Bull growled in response and yanked Dorian’s face back towards him and then moved to his neck, at which Dorian’s knees really did buckle and Bull chuckled low and dark and possessive and thrilled into Dorian’s skin.

“The…the Inquisitor…” he managed.

“I don’t care,” said Bull, switching sides. “Let her think it’s a fever dream.”

“Cassandra.”

“I want to fuck you right now.”

“Andraste’s-“

Bull did something with his tongue inside Dorian’s ear that made Dorian end his curse with something like a hollow whimper.

Bull smiled against his skin. “Oh, I’m going to have fun wringing those out of you.”

“Break it up, break it up,” Trevelyan called inserting her sheathed sword in its scabbard between their stomachs. She drummed it back and forth until an unwilling Bull let go with his teeth. Dorian felt the mark on his skin even as Bull grinned at him.

“Back in the boat,” hissed Cassandra. “Really!”

“But I want a bone!”

“I don’t care what you do in your-“

“He means from the dragon,” sighed Dorian.

“I’m not skinning that thing,” said Cassandra huffily. “Josephine I’m sure can –“

“A BONE!” yelled Bull.

“How about a little bone?” wheedled Trevelyan.

Cassandra threw up her hands.

“A tooth,” said Dorian helpfully. “I’m sure you can break one of them.”

“Oooh!” said Trevelyan, turning to run after Bull and then slowly sinking to her knees.

“Inquisitor!” Cassandra was immediately by her side.

“I’m flying,” said Trevelyan.

“She could fall _seriously_ ill unless we get her back to camp right now! And even then, we should order the cart back to Skyhold! It’s most of the day to get there as it is.”

“You’re…pretty,” said Trevelyan.

Dorian squatted beside her. “You useless lesbian,” he sighed, and put a hand to her head. “Sleep, and conserve your strength.”

He still had the tiniest thread of gold from killing the deer, and it took even less for Trevelyan’s body to agree to turn off. She slid down to one side as Cassandra looked at him despairingly.

“Now what?”

“Bull will carry her.”

“He’s _busy_ with his … “ Cassandra gestured at Dorian, and Dorian felt himself blush.

Bull’s mouth was smeared with red as he crossed the distance, and Dorian was concerned. Had Bull bitten him enough to draw blood. He put a hand to his neck instinctively to check on the flowering bruise, but felt nothing.

Bull didn’t look at any of them even as he surveyed the remains of the dragon. To Dorian’s surprise he bowed to its corpse.

“ _Taarsidath-an halsaam_ ,” he said quietly. He wiped his mouth, then scooped the Inquisitor into his arms.

Cassandra led the way back down to the small boat. Once seated, she held Trevelyan between her legs, Trevvy flopping over one of her knees on the bottom of the boat, still sleeping soundly. Dorian could tell she was ill; her cheeks were flushed and the wisps of baby hair around her hairline were curling with sweat in spite of the rain.

They didn’t go back to the caves but took the boat straight to the big driftwood tree where Bull had first seen the Vinsomer fight with a giant. He had told Dorian about it often; his first-ever venture with the boss and he had seen a dragon. A good omen for the Chargers joining the inquisition.

They walked down the beach towards the closest campsite. Cassandra, though tired and limping from a claw having raked down her thigh, kept jogging in place, wanting to chivvy Bull faster, anxiously peering into Trevelyan’s face every few minutes.

The soldiers saw them coming up the hill and sent scouts slipping down the rain-drenched grass.

“Get the cart ready!” Cassandra bellowed. “Turn around and get the cart ready! Right now!”

The camp became a swarming hive of activity. At the top, Cassandra checked the potions table anxiously. “Would these help?”

Dorian shook his head. “Different kinds of medicine for different kinds of ills.”

“Get her in the tent,” said Cassandra to the Iron Bull, who had been walking around the entire time with a glassy expression.

The Iron Bull carefully ducked into the tent, angling his horns as not to catch. Dorian made to follow her in but Cassandra swatted at his hands.

“Not _you_.”

“I was going to check how –“

“Let me dry her off and change her clothes.”

Dorian wanted to point off the rain was unlikely to stop but seeing Cassandra’s pinched blank expression he realized Cassandra felt helpless, and this was something she could do.

He stood, leaving the tent flaps to close behind him and mechanically helped stock the cart, laying out tarpaulin over the sides of the cart.

“Willow branches would help,” said a voice at his elbow, and Dorian looked down to see an anxious Scout Harding. “We could lash them to the sides and create a sort of wagon. Then the Inquisitor could stay dry.

“Thanks,” Dorian said, and realized without warning he was overwhelmingly drained.

He walked methodically through the mud to the potions table and downed a lyrium potion without even shaking it first, the ingredients silty in his throat. He didn’t care. He only followed it with several long swallows of water and then drummed the flat of his hand on the tent again.

“What is it?” snapped Cassandra.

“They’re going to try to construct a cover for the cart. She could stay dry.”

A pause. “Thank you,” came Cassandra’s voice unwillingly. “Will you come and look at her?”

Dorian squatted, shouldering halfway into the tent. Cassandra winced as he splashed the newly dry skin of Trevelyan with water.

Dorian could tell without touching her she had a fever, and her breath was rattling in her throat. He held a hand a few inches over her chest, frowning.

“Some sort of respiratory infection.”

“What?”

“Her lungs. They’re not clear.”

“Yes, I can hear that.”

“We can’t do much for her here, and you know I’m not a talented healer.”

“But you’re all we’ve got,” said Cassandra, not even disputing the point.

The stung a bit, especially because Dorian had undoubtedly saved her life in that dragon fight. But he could see from Cassandra’s intense focus anything he said would be unimportant unless it had to deal with _her._

“Wrap her warmly. I’ll get some stones for her.”

Dorian ducked back into the rain, the water splashing into his eyes so that he squinted at the sudden sensation.

“What is it?” asked Harding anxiously.

Dorian turned to look at the cart. Somehow, in minutes, Harding had woven an entire arch support and two scouts were lashing the tarpaulin to it.

“I love you,” said Dorian tiredly.

Harding patted him gingerly on the arm. “Rough day?” she asked sympathetically.

“We killed a dragon.”

Harding smiled. “So I’ve heard.”

Dorian turned, realizing he had misplaced Bull, who was crouching in the mud, tracing the battle from his point of view to a few unemployed scouts.

“Do you know where you could get round flat stones?”

“Skipping rocks?”

“What?”

“Rocks, like palm sized, they’re flat.”

"Those would be perfect,” said Dorian gratefully.

“Sure! How many do you need?”

“Uh,” Dorian was too tired to think straight.

“More or less than ten?”

“Ten would be good.”

Harding took pity on him. “Why don’t you get in the cart and I’ll bring them to you. They’re for the inquisitor, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get some scouts to load her up.”

“Thanks, Harding.”

“We all love her, you know.”

“Yes.” Dorian stared at the sudden swarm, Bull jumping up in guilt and looking wildly around. “I know.”

The ride back passed in and out of sleep. Dorian had used the last of the lyrium potion on heating up flat stones to tuck in the swaddled wrap around Trevelyan’s chest. It seemed to ease her breathing, but it also sent sweat trickling down her temples.

Bull sat cross-legged in the back of the flatbed, gazing out at the softly falling rain as the cart bumped down half cut roads. He was in a sort of daze. Dorian was stretched out in as much room as he could take on one side of the Inquisitor, blanketing her with his body heat. He kept dozing off and then jerking awake as his head hit the wooden boards hard enough to hurt. On her other side was Cassandra, but by her tense arms, Dorian knew she didn’t sleep at all, only lay in perfect guard.

It was well after dusk when they rattled into Skyhold, and thanks to Leliana’s intelligence, both Solas and Vivienne were on hand to take the Inquisitor, sending for a team of younger mages to boost her healing. Dorian hopped out of the cart, his entire body aching.

“I need a drink,” said Bull. It was the first thing he had said in hours.

Dorian turned to glance at him in surprise. He had thought Bull would have wanted...

“You should,” he said. “The Charger’s will want to-“

“Look, I love Krem and the guys but I want to drink with you.”

Dorian was too ground down to be surprised. “Oh.”

“Come on. Let’s go.”

Dorian wanted refuse. He was too tired to make a good showing of himself. He wanted it to happen naturally. He had been through a _hell_ of a day and he was still dripping wet.

“Okay,” he heard his mouth say anyway.

Stupid.

The Herald’s Rest was loud and noisy but most of all it was _dry._ Cabot wrinkled his nose as he and Bull slid into bar stools. Dorian only looked at him and let his hair drip onto the bar.

“My special bottle today.”

Dorian glanced sidelong at Bull.

He smiled. “I saved this one here to make sure I wouldn’t drink it. For a special occasion.”

“Dragon?”

“Fuck yes.”

“To dragons.”

Cabot served them in mugs but when Dorian smelled the drink he felt it should be served in a two fingered glass. When he took a sip, Dorian nearly hacked up a lung.

Bull laughed and slapped him between the shoulder blades. “It gets better. Drink!”

Dorian drank.

“To dragons,” Bull said in satisfaction. “Today was a good day.”

“You nearly died.”

“But I didn’t.”

“For a _dragon_.”

“Yeah. You know Qunari hold dragons sacred? Well, as much as we hold anything sacred.”

Dorian was feeling slightly more alive and he tipped his head to clear the water from his ears and ran his hand over his hair to keep it back.

“So does Tevinter.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that. You worshipped dragons, right?”

“Ha. We still killed them. Mostly for magic and their parts.”

“Blood.”

“Some of it.”

“Drink.”

They drank.

“You know the Nevarran dragonhunters?”

“Like Cassandra?”

“Yes, but drink.”

Dorian drank.

“They used to drink blood too.”

“Too?”

“Drink.”

“Bull!”

“Drink.” Bull helpfully tipped the bottom of Dorian’s mug so he sputtered.

“You-you _drank_ her blood?”

“Way of the Reaver.”

“What?”

“A warrior specialization. I’ve been waiting my whole life for the chance. The power in dragon’s blood. I wasn’t going to miss it.”

“Is that why you bowed to it?”

“Sort of. A thanks for the gift kind of thing. Drink.”

Dorian drank. This stuff could have peeled the skin off an apple. Or maybe it tasted like apples. He wasn’t sure, but at least his skin wasn’t wet anymore. He wasn’t even sure if his skin was still on at all. He only knew he was coming up on the end of his glass which seemed vaguely ominous.

“We call them the Ataashi.”

“Who the what?”

“The Ataashi. The glorious ones.”

“Dragons, you mean?”

“Glory upon glories!”

“Now _you_ drink.” Bull complied gladly.

“You’re getting drunk,” Bull accused.

“I’m not,” said Dorian primly.

“You _are_ ,” Bull’s breath was as foul as the liquor.

“Oh I passed getting drunk quite a while back. I’m well and truly there, my friend.”

Bull threw a big arm around Dorian, and Dorian could feel the cool rainwater on Bull’s warm skin. He held his face perfectly still.

“It’s just that….just that…dragons are the embodiment of raw power.”

“What?” Dorian wrestled himself back, and almost fell off his stool. Bull caught him with one hand.

“Caught you!”

"I caught you twice today."

"So I'm only one behind."

“Doesn’t count.”

“Does.”

“’S a bar. We’re drunk. Doesn’t count.”

“”m not drunk.”

“Yes you are.”

“Not.”

“You are.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m trying.”

The Iron Bull was so shocked he dribbled out of the sides of his mouth as he took a sip.

Dorian smiled angelically at him.

“You were saying raw embodiment of power?”

“Uncontrolled…” Bull was nodding along. “Yeah. Yeah. Savage. They…they need to be destroyed you know? Tame the wild in the world. Make order out of chaos. Have another drink.”

"I'm out."

"You're a liar."

"Look." Dorian tipped his cup and Bull groaned.

"Another!"

"No way," Cabot said; he had vanished the bottle after refilling Bull's glass halfway. "And only you because you're big."

"A qunari...that's the qunari...way of thinking."

"Huh?"

"Order out of chaos. Embrace chaos."

"It's because...because I think we're part dragons."

Dorian blinked slowly at him. "What?"

"Well, you know how we have horns? We kind of look more...dragony...than most people. Maybe it’s that."

"Like the blood?"

"Yeah. I mean...a few of the Ben-Hassrath have this crazy old theory. See, the Tamassrans control who we mate with. They breed us for jobs like you’d breed dogs or horses. What if they mixed in some dragon a long time ago? Maybe drinking the blood, maybe magic. I don’t know. But something in that dragon we killed...spoke to me."

"Spoke to you?"

"Metaphorically, you get me."

“Tarsith…Tarsith…something.”

“What?”

“What you said when you bowed. Tarsith.”

 _"Taarsidath-an halsaam._ ”

"Yeah," beamed Dorian, as pleased as if he had remembered it. "That. What does it mean?"

The Iron Bull grunted a moment, working out the translation in his head. "I will bring myself sexual pleasure later, while thinking about this with great respect."

Dorian choked on the remains of his drink he had been dribbling into his mouth. He then laughed so hard he dropped his head into the crook of his elbow. "There's words for that?"

"Don't laugh."

"Sorry. Sorry. But-"

"I was thinking about how I would lick you later with the same tongue stained by its blood."

Dorian couldn't help it. He shifted on his stool, and Bull smiled.

"My rooms are upstairs."

"That's fortunate," said Dorian. "That's probably as far as I can walk."

"Hey Dorian?"

"Yeah?"

"You've got a great ass."

Dorian grinned. "So I've heard."

They helped each other up the stairs. Dorian was trying to concentrate but whatever Bull had given him to drink made it very hard to put his foot on each step without help of the railing. The Iron Bull was using both hand rails to pull himself upwards and staggered a minute, uncertain of which way to go. Helpfully Dorian pulled an arm to the right, and together, stumbling and laughing they made it to Bull's door.

The door wasn't locked but Bull stood a moment in the doorway before he let Dorian enter, surveying.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just checking."

"What?"

"I like to leave clues that only I would notice. Leliana searches in here sometimes."

"Oh," said Dorian, who had never considered setting an alarm for his room, which had likely been searched dozens of times by now.

The Iron Bull's room was smaller than Dorian's. It was mostly occupied by a large bed, which was set on a single wooden low crate instead of in a frame. Dorian suspected Bull would tear through anything lighter.

"How do you want me?" Dorian asked, but his voice came out far more tired then he would have liked. He smothered a yawn behind a hand ineffectually and tried to smile.

The Iron Bull seemed to sober for a minute. "You're still soaking wet."

"I'll warm up."

"C'mere."

Dorian went willingly, forgetting to be nervous as Bull stripped off his robes. They peeled off, leaving his skin shining in the single candle Bull had lit by the bed.

"And-"

Dorian didn't wait, his fingers moving automatically, first one boot, then the socks, then his pants and then he stood, uncertain. He wasn't used to taking all his clothes off before the touching bit.

"Get in the covers."

"What?"

"Get in the covers."

"Do you want me to?"

"Nah."

Bull followed suit, disrobing almost completely and then sliding in next to Dorian who shivered. Bull, usually so warm, had cool skin.

"C'mere," Bull mumbled again, and Dorian almost smiled. It had been a long day for both of them.

He moved closer to Bull and let himself be pulled against his chest, breathing in the scent of him. Somewhere on his hip, Bull was hard against him.

"Do you-"

"Go to sleep."

"What?"

"Go to _sleep_ ," and this time Bull growled a little on the edge so that Dorian's spine thrilled and he shivered.

The Iron Bull smiled into his hair. "Oh yeah. When we're up-"

"Ha."

"I'll have a lot of fun talking to you."

Dorian tried to reply.Tried to make the joke, but his body was crashing. He had taxed his magic. He had been in a cart too long.

"Bull," he tried to say.

"Hmm."

"I'm still winning."

"I know."

"You don't mind?"

"Hmm."

"That's not an answer."

The Iron Bull rolled over onto his back, his arm still under Dorian's head and he smiled at the ceiling, stretching luxuriously. "No," he agreed. "It's not."

* * *

The morning was too bright. Dorian shifted in the bed and encountered something large and hot and heavy. He cracked an eye and immediately regretted it.

"Fuck."

"Don't," grunted Bull.

Dorian squinted at him. He had one arm over his eyes.

"Give me your hand."

"Hnn."

"Give."

Bull grunted and nudged his free hand along the bed clearly expecting Dorian to hold it and fall back asleep. Instead, Dorian _pulled_ on the alcohol in their blood. It evaporated through his nostrils, burning his watering eyes. He blinked to clear them a few times. His mouth tasted foul.

"Huh," said the Iron Bull. He sat up with a great rocking motion. "A party trick."

"Water," rasped Dorian, and Bull pulled a pitcher from the far dresser towards him with two fingers. The wooden room was small enough that Bull didn't need to stand on the bed.

Dorian accepted the pitcher gladly and drank from it with two hands. Some of his head cleared, and the foul taste faded. "What time is it?"

"Doesn't matter," said Bull, taking the pitcher and finishing the last of the water. "There'll be no work today."

"A day off?" Dorian scrunched up his face.

"Yeah."

"You have practice?"

"Nah. Krem'll handle it. He knows we got back late and had a rough go."

"It was a fucking dragon."

Bull's eyes went glassy again, and Dorian wasn't imagining the increased heat beneath the covers. It made him realize he was still wearing his underwear and he made a face.

"They're still damp," he complained.

"What are?"

Dorian smiled.

"Well," said Bull easily, stretching his arms above his head. "I'm not hungover. I have the day off. And I have a half naked man in my bed. What _will_ I do today?"

Dorian kicked at him but Bull only laughed. Dorian poked him in the sides.

"What are you doing?" Bull asked curiously after a few frustrated seconds.

"Tickling you!"

"Tickling me."

"People _laugh._ Normal people, I mean."

"Oh, like this?" Bull began to tickle Dorian and he shrimped around the fingers, laughing. It brought an edge of panic to his voice.

"Stop!"

Bull stopped instantly, and Dorian composed himself. He wriggled closer out of sheer gratitude. "Thanks."

"You say stop I stop."

"I assume this applies more broadly?"

"Remember tapped out?"

Dorian smiled fondly. "As I used it yesterday, I believe so."

"Thank you for that, by the way, even if I was mad at you thinking you'd immediately broken it."

"You asked me to tell you."

"And you did."

"Do I get a prize?"

"You get another safeword."

"Another one?"

"For this stuff."

"Not stop?"

"Stop means stop. It means stop, we should reposition. Stop, we should try something else, I need a better grip, I don't like this. Stop, I'm done."

"But?"

"But I want to know why you're done. What hurt. What you liked."

"And the safeword?"

" _Katoh_. Qunlat for 'all end.' We stop no questions asked."

Dorian pressed his forehead to Iron Bull's chest to hide his face. The sheer... _kindness_ Bull offered. Dorian had never had that much control in any previous relationship.

"Dorian?"

"Yes?" But Dorian whispered it to Bull's skin, in the warm hot space between Bull's arm on the bed and Dorian's chin.

"Are you good?"

"Yes."

"Do you need it again?"

"No."

"Say it for me. To make sure you know it."

" _Katoh._ "

"That's good."

Dorian felt his cheeks heat at the praise, so obviously laying the foundation for something else. He was glad Bull couldn't see his face.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

Dorian reluctantly pushed away, lifting his head and realizing Bull's blue ringed iris was studying him intensely.

"What?" he asked, and his waspishness came out to cover his nervousness.

“Are you hungry?”

This was so beyond anything Dorian had expected he laughed, then covered his mouth with his hand. “Maker my breath is foul.”

“Can’t smell it over mine. Was thinking we could clean up. Cabot serves a greasy good breakfast.”

“Hmm,” said Dorian, who had eaten a half meal of hard cheese and biscuit on the cart the day before. “I think so.”

“You _think_ so?”

“I don’t feel super hungry a lot.”

“So you don’t eat?”

“I didn’t say that. Don’t be silly. I’m easily bored.”

Bull smiled. “A challenge to keep you entertained?”

“You’re always entertaining.” Dorian had tried for teasing, but it slipped out shyly, too truthful. To hide his embarrassment he rolled out of bed on one hip, stood up, and found himself sitting back down.

“Dorian?” Bull’s voice was rough with surprised concern.

“I’m – I’m okay. Just stood up too fast.”

A heavy warm hand was laid on his shoulder blade and Dorian shivered beneath the touch. Bull didn’t move it, and he slowly relaxed into it, consciously unwinding his muscles.

“So what do you feel if you’re not hungry?”

“Hmm. Mostly a headache. Or faintly nauseated. Dizzy.”

“So you just ignore it.”

“I’m often working.”

“Right. Doesn’t magic use energy?”

“I do fine.”

“What am I going to do with you,” sighed Bull, and not fondly.

Dorian turned his chin over a shoulder, surprised at the lacings of anger in the voice. “What?”

“You just…always have headaches because you refuse to care for yourself.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m a lord. I have long baths and scalp massages.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“That’s caring.”

“That’s extra caring. You’re not even doing the normal caring.”

“Oh, you mean _management_ ,” teased Dorian, but Bull wasn’t rising to it.

“Yeah. Stuff like _drinking water_ and _eating nutritional food_ and not just a bowl of something that was laid out as polite bar food.”

“You’re getting awfully picky.”

“I’m not. I just didn’t realize you were so –“

“High maintenance?” suggested Dorian delicately, a mocking edge to his tone to hide his dismay. It was a comment he had received before, and it had done nothing but make him avoid showing the cost even more.

“No.” Bull looked annoyed, but he flopped into the mattress on his stomach. “Just so bad at taking care of yourself.”

Dorian realized Bull had purposefully laid down to give him a modicum of privacy in dressing, a thoughtfulness he hadn’t anticipated. The Iron Bull was casual about nudity whether it was his own or others. He had assured Sera that nudity in public was more common in Par Vollen, such as multi-gender bathing spaces, wrestling matches, and stripping off shirts in the sun.

Dorian quickly slipped his robes over his head and shivered all over. “ _Ugh_.”

“What?”

“These are also still damp.”

“Well, I don’t think my clothes would fit you.”

Dorian smiled even as he tried to pull the pants on. They were _not_ stretching. Wet leather shrunk, and they had been crumpled on the floor all night.

“I can’t get my pants on,” he complained.

Bull glanced up under an eyebrow, a crooked smile flitting around his stone cut lips.

“I mean it! They shrunk!”

“You could go down in your robes.”

Dorian looked down at his bare legs with their carefully toned calves and realized his skin was ashy.

“I can’t,” he said. “It’s a public tavern.”

“Not now. Only Cabot. Maybe Maryden. Even Krem’s out.”

“Are you trying to pull a prank on me where I go down and everyone points and says, ha, look at the magister’s son, he’s from Tevinter and he’s forgotten his pants?”

“Maybe,” said Bull, his smile widening. “But you wouldn’t care even then.”

Dorian considered. “You're probably right. Let’s go. I’m not putting on shoes either.”

He regretted this almost instantly. The planed wooden boards of the Herald’s Rest were sticky with spilled drinks, crumbs, dirt and mud from outside, and even the occasional splinter. Dorian hobbled his way across the empty commons ignoring Bull’s smug look.

He pulled himself onto the same barstool as the night before. Bull followed suit.

“Ugh,” said Dorian, feeling the countertop.

“That’s your fault,” said Cabot, coming in from the back.

“Hash today, Cabot?” Bull asked easily.

“Put it on your tab?” guessed Cabot wryly.

“Here’s hoping I’ve got room.”

“I’ll buy,” said Dorian.

“You got money on you?”

“Oh…er…no.”

“I’ll put it on his tab.”

Dorian shrugged apologetically to Bull, and they spent a companionable half hour chewing through various methods of prepared potatoes, with a few precious eggs from the coop Cabot kept out back.

“I need to take a bath,” sighed Dorian. “I think I still have dragon blood in my hair.”

The Iron Bull smiled. “Yeah, but I like it.”

“Be that as it may, I do need to bathe at some point before Trevelyan's next briefing, so it might as well be now.”

“You’re not wearing any pants.”

“So it would seem.”

“I use a bucket up in my room.”

“A _bucket?”_ shuddered Dorian. “Who’s bad at looking after themselves now?”

Bull ignored him.

“You’re welcome to use the tub,” Dorian heard himself offering. “If you like.”

There was a silence, and Dorian could feel Bull eyeing him appraisingly.

“There’s a screen. You know. For privacy.”

“Wow, a tub _and_ a screen. Josie must like you.”

“Well I made rather a fuss about it as I recall.”

“Do the castle maids fill it for you?”

“I’ll have you know I fill it myself, and it’s not _nearly_ so nice as Vivienne’s.”

“Bet she had it imported.”

“As a matter of fact, she did. Hers is porcelain.”

The Iron Bull smiled widely. “Yeah. That tracks.”

“Don’t,” moaned Dorian, covering his ears. “ _Don’t_ think about her like that.”

Dorian ended up half pulling the leather leggings on and hiding the tops under his robes. He muddled his way into soaking boots and led the way back across the grass to the stairs up to the great hall. He turned up the stairs by the collection of mosaics that Trevelyan was enjoying hunting down. She wasn’t admittedly doing a very good job, but she was still happy doing it, so the rest of the Inner Circle humored her as she climbed up a roof or dug through of a pile of debris.

Dorian realized on the long walk down the hallway to the inner part of the castle that Bull had never been to his quarters before. This seemed strange, given the months they had known each other.

“It might be a bit of a mess,” he threw over his shoulder, his mind racing forward, trying to remember how he had left it before venturing towards the Storm Coast. The maids were only for the hearth cinders and changing the linens. They wouldn’t pick up garments or extra underwear hastily kicked under the bed.

Dorian opened the door to his room with cringing shoulders that relaxed when he saw it was mostly presentable. The bed was made, and if there were books scattered about absently and a few empty bottles of wine it wasn’t so bad.

“Two armchairs _and_ a fireplace,” whistled the Iron Bull. “You’re living large.”

“You know you’re welcome to live in the palace.”

“Nah. Too cramped. One tiny window? One entry and exit? Long tight corridors for a fight? Bad place for me.”

Dorian palmed the back of his neck then gestured to the large tin tub in a corner. “I’ll get it going, shall I?”

“You can go first,” Bull assured him. “I’m comfy.”

He took a seat in one of the armchairs and pulled a book on Marcher politics towards him. Dorian raised his eyebrows but shrugged. He positioned the tub a little ways from the fireplace, which he lit with a thought. In the tub he set the water level rising from the snowmelt outside.

“It’s cold,” said the Iron Bull in disappointment. He had been watching not at all covertly and had leaned forward to dip a finger into the water.

“Just wait,” said Dorian, and pulled heat from the fire slowly, the way he would have dipped a ladle into the skim of a jug so as not to break it. Too much, and the fire would go out.

The water warmed beneath Bull’s finger until it was steaming, and Dorian set up the folding screen between the tub and the chairs, though he figured he was being rather silly. Bull had seen him naked in flashes; in nearly drowning in the Oasis and getting dressed on campaign. There was no reason to –

Dorian sighed as he sank into the tub, and heard the creak of the armchair on the other side of the screen. Self-conscious, he dipped below the water, splashing some over the stone floor but not caring. It took several tries to cast his spells over the top of the screen to the vanity, pulling at the bottles over there. As they went tinkling past Bull’s amused voice followed them:

“You could have asked me to pass those to you.”

“Sorry,” Dorian said guiltily. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“You aren’t,” Bull assured him, but his voice was rougher than usual.

Dorian wasn’t _sure_ what would be happening in a few minutes? Hours? But he took care in case. He washed himself thoroughly, combing oil through the ends of his hair and mustache to soften them. He used a citrus zest he had to pay a fortune for on his face and finally stood, dripping and feeling foolish. He didn’t have a towel.

“Close your eyes,” he commanded severely.

“Only got the one.”

“Well shut that one.”

“Why?”

“Please.”

“Okay. It’s closed.”

Dorian sent a tiny puff of spirit out, but when Bull said nothing he peered around the screen. The qunari was sitting perfectly still in his armchair, his eye shut.

Dorian quickly tiptoed behind him, knowing that Bull’s chin followed his sound easily and he had inhaled sharply at the scent of him.

Dorian crawled wet beneath his covers. “Okay. I’m in.”

Bull cracked a smile and an eye together. “You could have asked for a towel.”

“I don’t have a towel.”

“You don’t have a towel?”

“No.”

“Dorian.”

“It’s not that. I just…I just enjoy drip drying after I bathe.”

The Iron Bull made a sound in his throat and Dorian buried his face into a pillow to hide his flush.

“What?” Bull finally managed, somewhat evenly.

“I just lay on the bed and read.”

“Wet?”

“There’s a fire.”

“You’re going to kill me.”

Dorian paused, skirted the flirtation, and said: “There’s water in the tub, but I can fill it-“

“No. It’s good. Leave it.”

“I already washed in it. It’s really no trouble to-“

“Dorian? I said leave it.”

Bull’s voice send a thrill up Dorian’s spine. He watched as Bull pushed himself on the armchairs and stepped around the screen. He wasn’t wearing his brace or shoulder holster, so there was only the thumping of black boots and the hiss of fabric before Bull got in.

Belatedly, Dorian sent a few warming spells into the water, and Bull grunted in surprise.

“Sorry,” said Dorian, who had sat up. He glanced at his vanity next to his bed. There were lotions too.

Carefully using similar warming spells on the water droplets on his own skin, Dorian encouraged them to evaporate as he pulled the lotions towards him. The hiss of evaporating water made a counterpoint to the quiet ripples Bull made as he shifted in the bath.

Dorian quickly slathered down his arms, rubbing in brisk circles along his shoulders, his chest, around his neck. He quickly skimmed his ribs and stomach, then concentrated on scooping enough lotion from its jar to cover a leg. He heard something from the tub and his breath caught, hands freezing for an instant, then switched legs.

“I’m thinking about the dragon yesterday,” came Bull’s voice, rough and casual behind the screen.

“What about it?” asked Dorian, who was pulling handfuls of lotion up his knees and starting to squirm against the sheets.

“That was probably the best day of my life.”

“Really?” Dorian was pushing circles into his thighs, trying to leave no spot unoiled, dipping down against his ass and back up through the triangle of his legs.

“Yeah. It was like an out of body experience. Like…like a thirty minute orgasm.”

Dorian’s hands stilled. He had been getting very close to his own swelling shaft. He had been ignoring it in case he had misread the room.

“Really,” he said, and cleared his throat.

“Yeah,” said Bull, and his voice was cool. “I’ve been waiting to think about this all night.”

“Oh,” said Dorian, and his hand fell on the base of his shaft. He pulled himself off with a palm slicked with lotion and tipped his head back against the bed, squeezing his eyes shut. He held his breath, then forced himself to ask. “What did you like about it?”

His hand was working quickly. He wanted to come quietly, before the Iron Bull knew what he was doing. Better to slow himself down, to go another round. The lewd sound of his skin squelching against the lotion made him slow. Let Bull think he was putting on lotion.

“Dorian?”

“Y-yes?” Dorian asked, his voice tight. His hips were tight against the bed with the effort not to rock into his own hand. He realized he had shut his eyes against the sheer intimacy of it, knowing the Iron Bull was on the other side of the room.

“Let me,” said Bull. He had slipped almost silently from the tub, around the screen. He was staring down at Dorian, at the way Dorian's heels were barking against the sheets, pushing back to give himself more frozen friction, his hand wrapped firmly around himself.

Dorian wanted to blush, wanted to do anything, but instead his hand fell open as if by magic and a soaking wet Iron Bull crawled reverently onto the bed below him and pressed open Dorian’s thighs with his hot hands.

“Bull,” Dorian said, his voice trembling embarrassingly.

“I’ve been waiting for this.” Bull breathed out against Dorian’s skin and raised goosebumps. His hips juddered, but Bull held his thighs open, his fingers digging into Dorian’s skin. “I told you. I'd been waiting to think about this."

Dorian squirmed. Bull had meant _him._

Bull tilted a horn against Dorian's calf. "Maker's sin, you’re beautiful.”

“I-“

The Iron Bull kissed the inside of one of his thighs and Dorian couldn’t take the pressure. His hips jolted ineffectually against Bull’s face, and Bull smiled, his wide hot breath cresting along Dorian’s slick skin like a wave.

“Slicked up just for me,” Bull said quietly. 

He carefully ran his hand from Dorian’s open knee up to the base of his shaft. There was a tense, silent moment while Dorian looked at him, knowing his own face was wild, begging. Then Bull wrapped his enormous burning fingers around Dorian and pulled upwards.

Dorian’s hips followed him up, and he fell back to his bed. The wood of the frame creaked.

“So responsive,” breathed Bull. “I thought you might be, but you can’t be sure.” He repeated the action, and Dorian flung an elbow over his face.

“No.” Bull pulled it down. “Your face. I want to see.”

Dorian breathed out hard, and Bull rewarded it with a long hot lick across his stomach. Dorian made a sound somewhere in his throat.

Then Bull's hands were on Dorian, some with rapid velvety pulls and some skimming up his sides, pinching his nipples, delighted with their sensitivity. They pressed fingers into the bruise Bull had left on his neck, marking him after the dragon. They tugged on his hips, forced him to turn on his side as Bull slid in behind him, his own heavy shaft inserted between Dorian’s slicked thighs.

Dorian cried out then, a soft, capitulating noise into the pillow.

One of Bull’s arms tightened around Dorian and Bull's hips jerked, snapping into Dorian’s back quickly. He began thrusting, quietly, surely, slowly, matching time with his hand.

Dorian knew he was making a writhing messy fool of himself but couldn’t help the tiny held gasps, the breathy sharp intakes, the whimpering cries and punishingly slow pace.

“You…You're...” Bull seemed to be having trouble speaking. “I should have…I should have waited with you.”

Dorian tried to say something, but Bull was pushing harder and his thighs were trembling with the effort of clenching as tightly as they could.

“I’m too…since the dragon I’ve been…too close. Too close.”

“Good,” Dorian gasped. “Me too.”

“No…I…I should have…should have…taken care of you…first…”

Dorian reached blindly behind him. “You first.”

“I can’t. I can’t! I-“

“I’ll put you…Maker Bull, Maker I – I – I’ll put you in my mouth.”

Bull bit down on Dorian’s shoulder and made a guttural groan that sounded like a swear as his hips became erratic, his thrusting sloppy and hurried, his thighs trembling against Dorian’s and then he was coming. Dorian felt the hot wet of him spurting against his thighs, trickling down the front and the heady salt sweet scent.

He groaned and buried his face into the pillows.

“Fuck,” said Bull. “Fuck. I didn’t mean to-“

“Just rest,” said Dorian, trying to slide off.

Bull growled, flipping onto his back and pulling Dorian on top of him. Dorian tried to struggle off but Bull held him with one arm around his chest easily, and without meaning to betray quite how erotic Dorian found it, his hips jolted even as he tensed his back.

“Oh,” said Bull into his ear. “That’s very good.”

Dorian whimpered against the praise, still arching for some sort of contact.

“I’m going to pull you off slow and sweet,” Bull growled.

“No!” Dorian tried to thrash in place but then Bull’s hand was on him and his hips were stuttering backwards and forwards and he was following the rhythm without thinking about it, without meaning to, his brain chasing the vague white daydream just in front of him. The bed frame was squeaking in time and Dorian’s focus was spiraling in and out of it, in and out of Bull’s quiet ragged breaths and his own half vocalized sounds.

“Remember to breathe.” The Iron Bull sounded amused in Dorian’s ear. “Holding your breath won’t make you come faster.”

Dorian let his breath out with a whoosh. It was a habit he had when he was concentrating, even when researching or casting. He hadn’t realized…hadn’t meant for it to…

“Bull I’m close,” he warned.

“Oh,” said Bull pleasantly, and took his hand away, wrapping it instead around Dorian’s stomach as he bucked against him.

“Fuck,” Dorian said. “Fuck please Bull _please_.”

“In a minute.”

“Bull…please…”

“Hell, you don’t know how hot you are when you’re begging me.”

“I’ll do whatever you want. Just-“

“Easy,” said Bull, his own hips having jumped at Dorian’s words. The bed gave a great creak in answer. “I said I’d pull you off slow.”

Dorian squirmed, then forced himself to hold still.

"Well done," Bull purred into his ear. He resumed his stroking.

Dorian knew he was being absolutely ridiculous. He was arching and writhing against Bull, his back bowing upwards as he followed the inexorable hands, his legs scrabbling for purchase, his breath short gasps in his shoulders.

“Please,” he begged. “Please.”

Bull laved his neck with his tongue, found the bruised spot and sucked in.

Dorian stilled completely, but could not make his muscles unwind.

“Good job,” said Bull into his ear. “That was good.”

“I need to-“ Dorian tried to explain, but got no further. Suddenly Bull was stroking again, slow at first, and faster and faster. Dorian was crying out in tiny broken whimpering cries as his body bent higher and higher against Bull, Bull’s other arm binding his chest in place, his hips writhing in the air and then there was _pressure_ and Dorian felt his body spasm. Felt himself falling. Felt pulsing again and again as his vision turned red then white as he tilted his neck to one side, his knees futilely trying to stiffen. There was a high whining creak and distantly Dorian wondered if the bed would break. If he would have to explain to Josephine that -

He panted, sprawling over Bull until he felt gentle arms moving him. Bull turned his body so that Dorian slid down onto the mattress.

Dorian closed his eyes.

“You’re so lovely like this,” murmured Bull, and Dorian felt a reverent finger tracing his arm muscles.

Dorian flinched.

“Oh?” said Bull, smiling. "Still?"

“No,” Dorian tried to say, but Bull was moving downwards his hands pressing expertly around Dorian’s abdomen and he jerked against the contact, writhing. He was too sensitive. Bull couldn’t expect him to –

Another sluicing, slow and sticky, spread between Dorian’s legs. He shuddered, and fell still.

“You’re all flushed and warm from the bath,” Bull whispered into his skin as he kissed the inside of Dorian’s knee. “Your skin smells like oranges.”

Dorian wanted to tell him it was a citrus scrub, that he was not special that way, that he had been well fucked but that Bull could do better than him. That he could leave and they could pretend he didn’t have to take care of a mess like Dorian. That Dorian could go back to quick blowjobs from nameless soldiers. That the fingers on his skin reminded him of when he was a young man, back when intimacy was earned.

“Easy,” said Bull, who had been watching his face. “Easy. I’ve got you.”

“You’re not catching me that easily,” Dorian managed, and in surprise, Bull gave a dry chuckle.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying. There’s still bathwater left. Let me wipe you down.”

“I'm good."

"It wasn't really a request."

"Wipe yourself down."

“My bath was interrupted actually.”

“I can’t imagine why,” said Dorian.

“Really? Me neither. Definitely not the tight and thready voice from the other side of the screen trying to distract me. Like I wouldn’t _know_ what that voice was.”

Dorian smiled tiredly. “You had never heard me use it.”

“Oh and I still haven’t,” Bull said. “You have so many delicious sounds in you I’ll be playing a _long_ time.”

Dorian shivered and then rolled out of bed, giving Bull the view of the ass he had wanted. Dorian smiled over his shoulder.

“Well then,” he said. “Are you coming?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to all my #uselesslesbians and #disasterbis out there trevvy is for you.


	9. Chateau d'Onterre, the Emerald Graves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s HURT comfort

“ Hey, straight up?” Varric said casually. “This fucking sucks.”

Trevelyan laughed nervously as they closed the journal by the kitchen maid’s bed.

“Just a casual haunting,” said Dorian brightly.

“Of a child ghost,” Varric said sourly.

“A mage child.”

“A possessed mage child.”

“I think we can safely say,” Bull put in. “That this kid is not around anymore.”

“Don’t be too sure,” said Varric uneasily.

“Whatever is still around isn’t the kid.”

“Oh thanks, I feel much better.”

The four of them fell silent as they began to hack through several animated corpses.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you for your most recent report,” Trevelyan said in the sudden silence. She wasn’t looking at Bull but riffling through loose documents in the library. “Leliana said it was most helpful.”

“No sweat, boss. No skin off my nose to pass it on.”

“I hope it’s not getting you in trouble with the Qun.”

“You give them stuff back.”

“That Leliana approves.”

“Red and I understand each other.”

“Yes,” said Trevelyan, and Dorian was surprised to hear something like sadness threading through her voice. “I know.”

Another room, and a platform balcony. “How are we supposed to get over there?” Dorian asked dryly.

“I could toss Varric I bet, from the ground.”

“Ha ha,” said Varric sourly. “And I could toss something with equal force straight up your ass.”

Bull winked at him, and Varric rolled Bianca in her crossbow straps across his wide shoulders in disgruntled silence.

“I think,” said Trevelyan, sounding far more delighted than any of the others, “it’s a puzzle.”

“Oh good,” said Varric. “A puzzle.”

“Make Bull do it,” yawned Dorian.

“Make Dorian do it,” added Varric.

“I’ll do it,” said Trevelyan. She frowned. “Dorian, I thought this would be right up your alley.”

“Why? Because I like learning obscure arcane facts and understand politics? Not exactly my kind of puzzle here to find some key.”

“And Varric? With your stories?”

“Yeah, stories. You know where you make up personas who care more than you do about other things you don’t.”

“How touching.”

“Hey, your Inquisitorialness, I can write a whole series of solve it yourself mysteries about you if you want.”

“Would you make me pretty?”

“Prettier?”

Trevelyan smiled, but she didn’t blush. Dorian recognized her political mask dropping down. Noble breeding.

“I’ll help, boss.”

“Easy Tiny,” said Varric, settling himself in an abandoned armchair. “We should all stick together in here. Or else you’ll have to pick my corpse out from the rest.”

“And we’re just what, supposed to wait?”

“The Inquisitor has a plan,” said Dorian with a sardonic smile. “She’ll let us know.”

Trevelyan gave him a small, sidelong smile in keeping with her Game persona, then broke it to make a face.

“Fine! Fine! I’ll work it out myself.”

As he watched the Inquisitor climb along the suspended bones of a dragon, Dorian reflected that Trevelyan really did get into the most interesting of circumstances.

They did make it to the higher balcony in the end, but it was slick with slime and algae. No one had walked on it in…Dorian was no botanist. But it seemed a very long time. Months at the least.

He slipped on one knee and groaned at the long skid of green slime up the triangular tail of his robes. He had just ordered these made with real samite trimmed in obsidian. The stitching was exquisitely understated.

“Great job,” said Varric. “Really brings out your eyes.”

Dorian was saved the benefit of having to imagine a reply by the thing that had consumed a child emerging.

The battle was none so fierce as the dragon. In fact, Dorian was just thinking that they were handling it remarkably well when he was slammed off his feet by a blast of energy and smashed into the stone railing. It crumbled easily away as Dorian wheezed, scrambling to stay on the surface. Trevelyan was engaged with the thing face to face, and Dorian knew he needed to get up, needed to help, he was their only mage and this demon was mostly magic, but his fingers were finding no purchase and the bits of railing behind his back were crumbling and he knew he wouldn’t die but the fall would be less painful if he committed now to fade-stepping down and-

He felt his stomach lurch as he finally let go and plummeted over the side. He didn’t make a sound, only oriented himself to start running for the ground when he felt something jerk at the scruff of his robes and he uttered a short, clipped cry of panic as he bodily slammed into the stonework.

“Just hang on!”

“Let go! Bull! Let go! Help Trevelyan!”

“Dorian, it’s okay. Don’t fight just –“

“You’re wasting time! I’ll be fine! Just let me go!”

“I’m not going to let you fall.”

“You’re being ridiculous. They need help!”

“Varric!” screamed Trevelyan.

“Bull!”

Dorian scrabbled at Bull’s armguards trying to work his fingers free. If he would just let Dorian go, Dorian was fine, he would be hurt, but they would patch him up after. He needed to get somewhere to help the Inquisitor – she was all alone – she was all Thedas had.

The Iron Bull heaved. Dorian felt his frozen momentum reverse based on Bull’s single arm pulling him straight up even as he turned his hips. Dorian and Bull’s greataxe went the same way. Dorian bowled into the demon and went skidding across the algae covered balcony as Trevelyan and Bull took advantage of it being down to hack it apart.

Dorian sent a few spells in for good measure but then panted in the silence after, staring at the bright blue sky before a hand appeared before his vision.

“Maker damn you,” Dorian spat, swatting the hand away. “She could have been killed.”

“I wouldn’t have let her.”

“For me.”

“Dorian.” Bull’s voice was deep and calm, and it sent shivers up Dorian’s spine. “I wouldn’t have let her. If the choice had been that, I would have made it.”

Dorian stopped trying to swipe ineffectually at his robes – green and scummy all over now. “Oh,” he said. He straightened. “Good.”

“I thought you’d be glad I came after you at all.”

Dorian swallowed, then looked away. “Ah,” he said lightly. “You’ve brought the score back to a tie. You can’t fool me.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Trevelyan interrupted from where she was kneeling by an unconscious Varric, tipping a potion into his mouth. “Just tell him you like him and appreciate it and get it over with.”

“Pardon me?”

“Look, I wasn’t that sick when we slayed the dragon.”

For a moment, neither Iron Bull nor Dorian looked at one another, but then they both started laughing.

Trevelyan scowled. “Yeah, yeah. You said it was the best day ever.”

“It was,” Bull assured her. “But you were real out of it.”

“Not out of it enough to miss you making out in the rain.”

Dorian didn’t bat an eyelash. A lesser man might of blushed, but he only cocked a hip out over his once broken leg and leaned insouciantly against his staff. “I wasn’t aware your employees needed permission to share a tent.”

Trevelyan rolled her eyes and tipped the last of the potion into Varric’s mouth. “I won’t say anything if that’s what you want. But really, you are being an asshole.”

“I agree,” said Varric, his hazels eyes popping open. “I don’t know what we’re talking about, but I agree with Trev.”

“Fuck off,” Dorian said in annoyance. “I need a bath.”

It was back at camp at dusk that Dorian felt civil enough to take another stab at it.

“Here,” he said, handing Bull a tin plate full of beans. Their camping food was unglamorous to say the least, and Bull was the only one who ever wanted seconds. The rest of the scouts and party had drifted away. Varric was beneath a tree, scribbling in his journal full of half-finished story ideas. Trevelyan was pressing Scout Harding for details about growing up in Redcliffe in a way that made Dorian sigh in fond exasperation.

“Thanks.”

The Iron Bull wasn’t looking at him, but Dorian didn’t take it personally. Bull was working on a ciphered report to send to Leliana to approve to send to the Qun. It was all very complicated.

“How goes it?” Pitiful stab at conversation, but Dorian felt he had to try.

Bull looked up, the deep scars where his horns met his forehead pooling shadows in the flickering light of the campfire. “Slowly.”

“Would you like company?”  
“Either way is fine.”

Dorian settled himself on the ground rather than on the log where Bull had spread his papers, using one broad knee as a writing desk.

“You can lean back, if you want.”

Dorian leaned his weight onto the tree trunk, feeling the slight give to the rough bark. It was a cloudy night, thick with the smell of rain but impossible to see beneath the wide arching canopy of black leaves. One tree for every elf warrior, or so the legend went.

He hadn’t brought anything to do, so his hands were fiddly. He tried to meditate; always difficult, but helped by the quiet atmosphere, the crackling of the fire, the smoke in his nostrils.

“You going to finally come out with it?”

Dorian tipped his head up at Bull, but didn’t take his eyes from the flames. “Hmm?”

“The thing that’s been eating you today.”

“Has there been?”

“Suit yourself.”

“I only meant it genuinely. Like my headaches.”

“Oh.” The Iron Bull carefully screwed the ink back onto the bottle before setting it to one side. “You have one of those too,” he added helpfully.

“I don’t think so,” said Dorian, digging his knuckles into the top of his head. “Just tired.”

Pressure joined his fingers; the Iron Bull had dug his fingers into Dorian’s hair and was massaging circles.

Dorian hissed at the contact, not realizing the pain that had been flowering there.

“You know they call these the stiletto headaches.”

“The what?”

“Stiletto like the thin dagger. It’s a quick and quiet way of killing someone dropping down overhead. You just puncture the skull and they’re out.”

“Hmm,” Dorian managed. Bull was moving his broad burning thumbs around the back of Dorian’s head, and it was flopping heavily against his chest. When Bull pressed at the base of his skull, Dorian jerked, a sound in his throat.

“Sorry,” said Bull, quickly drawing away.

“No, it’s me, I’m a baby.”

“I don’t think you have a good grasp of your own pain management.”

Dorian blinked, green shadows behind his eyelids, as he tried to puzzle this out. “What?”

“I think you think you’re soft when it comes to pain.”

“Not too bad,” said Dorian modestly. “I’ve taken my share.”

“Yeah, I’m not even talking about in battle. I think you don’t even realize how much pain you put up with because you’re too busy to let yourself feel it.”

“Is this because I don’t feel hungry? It’s not a bad-“

“It’s part of it. But you say you don’t even notice your headaches. I had to tell you about this one. And you aren’t lying about it either. I would know.”

Dorian flushed, glad his back was to Iron Bull and his face was already red in the firelight. Bull’s cavalier assurance at being able to read the flickerings of expression even on Dorian’s face he wore for the Game was disconcerting.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not knowing exactly what he was apologizing for.

“It’s fine. I just…”

“Just?”

“Worry.”

“About me? I’m touched.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“Can’t help it.”

Instead of rising to the bait, the Iron Bull sighed and began stacking the papers. “I know.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dorian again. “Let me.”

Bull handed him a stack and Dorian tapped the bottoms against the log to straighten the pile. He handed them back and Bull rolled the whole mess up into a carrying satchel. He looked down at Dorian and Dorian turned his face back to the fire.

After a moment, Iron Bull levered himself to sit on the ground next to Dorian, stretching his stiff knee towards the fire.

“Getting to be summer again,” Bull said meditatively in the silence.

“What?”

“Was last summer when boss came knocking.”

“I believe you were fighting, actually.”

“Eh, just a cleanup. It was more like an audition. And I got to see Trevvy fight.”

“And?”

“Not bad. No expert, but she’s got grit. And the form. You can tell there’s money behind it.”

“Yes,” said Dorian musingly. “They never quite motivated me to be good at the martial combat.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Five years of fencing? I never kid.”

“Five years, huh? Any good?”

“Not at all. Willfully terrible.”

“Verbal sparring then.”

“Ha. You are a wit.”

“So they tell me.”

They fell silent, staring at the fire, and Dorian realized even in the late spring evening, warm and balmy, he could feel the heat from Iron Bull’s skin. Almost without thinking about it, he leaned into it, his head resting on Bull’s shoulder.

Bull looked down in surprise.

“Tell me a story,” said Dorian, ignoring the look.

“Sure, what about?”

“A job.”

“I got a million and one of those.”

“I know.”

“Have I told you about the one with the giants?”

“Yes.”

“The feathers?”

“Yes.”

“About how I became Hissrad?”

“Yes. The vegetables. I remember.”

Dorian remembered that story particularly vividly. It was the first night in the tent; the one where they had held hands and Dorian had talked softly all night to Bull, to make sure he didn’t fall asleep with his concussion. The next day they had been almost delirious from drowsiness, making Cassandra click and suck her teeth and scold until Trevelyan innocently held her hands out to Cassandra to bind up again.

“That’s how we met,” she had said, smiling sweetly.

Cassandra had gone scarlet and subsided, while Bull gave the Inquisitor a not-so-subtle high five.

“How about how I lost my eye?”

Dorian paused. “No. You haven’t told me that one.”

Bull grunted, and settled deeper against the log. “It was in Tevinter,” he said, his voice low and thoughtful. “Or just on the border, thereabouts.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Working a job.”

“I didn’t know you had been to Tevinter.”

“In and out, over the border. Qunari aren’t exactly popular there, but there are those who get a kick out of hiring me.”

“Yes. I can imagine so.”

“Right. Anyway. Job was done. In a bar with some guys. Chargers weren’t official yet.”

“Really?”

“Hmm, yeah, guess you wouldn’t know. Sometime between leaving Seheron and founding the Chargers, I just worked as a single mercenary for hire. I’d move town to town with some guys, but people left and stayed and all that. I wasn’t exactly great company at the time.”

Dorian paused. He knew what Bull meant. Seheron had tipped Bull to the edge of wanting to die. Ten years when most lasted two.

“You must have been very young, when you started there,” he said instead.

The Iron Bull made a surprised sound in the back of his throat, like he had been planning ways the conversation would go and Dorian had broken the rules.

“Not so young,” Bull said after a moment. “I had been of age for a few years.”

“So you were a young man. In your twenties.”

“The Qun doesn’t really keep track of age.”

“They keep track of when you were born.”

“Yeah, but it’s not exactly like we have birthdays.”

“You know your birthday.”

“Yeah only because Krem asked me once, and I didn’t know what he wanted it for, so like a fool I told him.”

“And?”

“And he’s never left me alone since.”

Dorian tried hard not to smile and lost.

“Yeah, yeah,” the Iron Bull waved a hand towards the fire. “He gets all mushy about it too.”

“I didn’t get you a birthday gift this year.”

“It is in summer. Coming up. You could get me one this time around.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Krem and the Chargers had a bonfire in one of the backwoods clearings by the river at Haven. We all got stinking drunk and passed out. Woke up to getting rained on, and we all slipped in the mud into the water getting back. I don’t know. It was pretty good.”

Dorian smiled as he stared at the firelight. “Maker, I would have hated that.”

“I know. So fussy about your appearance. Can’t even get a little slime on you.”

“Hush,” said Dorian, but fondly. “Tell me about being near Tevinter. Losing the eye.”

“Oh right, yeah. So I was there with some guys. They were going to continue on to Minrathous.”

“You were so close to the capitol?”

“Nah, not really. A few weeks ride.”

“Still. It’s strange to think we were so close together and didn’t know it.”

“Didn’t know you either. Wouldn’t have gone well had we met.”

“No?”

“Nah. I was a mess back then. Half crazy.”

“Well I was rather more self-absorbed back then.”

“I bet you were.”

Dorian thought about the weeks leading up to his – he refused to think of the word _escape_. It had been night. He had slowly stocked saddlebags with food over days and hidden them beneath the hay in the barn. He had worn multiple sets of clothes and would strip in the hayloft, stuffing them into the bags. He hadn’t brought anything really valuable. No magical artifacts. No books. Only money and food. He had taken one horse at two in the morning. He hadn’t stopped for nearly three months.

“Dorian?”

“Hmm?”

“You went somewhere.”

Dorian tipped his head back into the Iron Bull’s shoulder. “Only here.”

Bull grunted, and Dorian knew he understood.

“Anyway. Some Vint bar. There was a fight. Three guys picking on a little one.”

“You didn’t.”

“Just wait.”

“Fine.”

“And they were kicking him around pretty bad. Telling him he was scum, that sort of thing. Couldn’t figure it out. Little guy was doing nothing.”

“How little are we talking?” asked Dorian teasingly. “Because to you, everyone is-“

“It was Krem.”

Dorian stopped talking, only stared open-mouthed at Bull.

“They had a knife. Were going to cut on him something bad. I wanted the guys I was with to help me break up the fight but they had got wind of what Krem was. I ended up fighting them first before I could wade in and break a guy’s arm. While I was doing that, they tried to stab him.”

“You lost an eye for Krem?” Dorian couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice.

“Yeah, well, it worked out, didn’t it? Stupid kid followed me out of the tavern, blubbering at the top of his voice he was sorry, and I told him it was fine, to get out of there, but he said he wanted to join my company. How crazy is that? My company. Thought I was a leader.”

Dorian was silent. He knew what Bull meant. For a Tevine to think a qunari was a leader would be…impossible.

“So you took him with.”

“Didn’t mean to. Just that the other guys I had been with deserted. Like Krem had a plague or something. Anyway, ended up just being me and him, and he wanted out of the country, so we left. Went back South to the Anderfells, and just kept working our way down. I half expected him to find somewhere else and settle down, but then we picked up Skinner practically quivering to tear out someone’s throat in a bar. And it went from there. Just adding them on one by one; needed a healer, Stitches was in a bind. Some people being racist against dwarves, got Rocky. Eventually we worked our way through all the Free Marches. And I mean all of them, even the little city-states like Varric’s from. Took a few years, but we picked up Chargers along the way.”

Dorian turned a half rueful smile. “So it would seem. Why the Charger’s?”

“Well, I hadn’t really had a whole ass name yet. Got called Bull on account of the horns. It was Krem who helped me come up with the title, article The and all.”

“You picked your name based on…”

“A slur, yeah. Figured they gave it to me. Might as well make it mine.”

“Andraste.”

“Well, it isn’t so bad. The name caught on like fire, and it was easy to pick the group name. Bulls charge. You know how it is.”

Dorian snorted faintly.

“Anyway. The strays I was picking up…I don’t know. They sort of seemed like the people the Qun would be interested in.”

“Did you try to convert them?”

“Yeah. At first. Wrote back to the Qun with detailed profiles and everything.”

“And?”

“Well, it was weird. They weren’t interested. And the Qun is interested in anybody. Seriously.”

“Maybe it’s because they were yours.”

“Yeah,” said Bull after a long moment. “That’s what I eventually figured out. That I had written too much of my feelings into ‘impartial’ reports. Plus none of the Chargers really went for it. Sorta like a religion thing. Let Dalish do what she wants but not really join in.”

“But the Qun influenced you.”

“Of course. It built me. Raised me. Made me. Literally in every sense. And a bunch of broken people had fallen in my lap.”

“So you went about fixing them.”

“No,” and here the Iron Bull looked frustrated, impatient that Dorian was so dense. “I went about helping them fix the ways they approach shit. I mean, you can’t fix what happened to Skinner. That was fucked up.”

Dorian didn’t know what happened to Skinner, but didn’t ask.

“And so you’ve got someone who sees that every time she closes her eyes, wants to break the whole damn world. You can’t fix that. We just taught her how to break better. Made her happy – she was breaking stuff. Made us happy – she was breaking the things we wanted her to. No more fights with strangers.”

“But you made a mistake,” said Dorian lightly.

“Did I?”

“You care about them.”

“Yeah,” and Bull admitted this tightly, despite the lazy smoke from the fire curling up into dark branches. “I know. I didn’t mean to. It just sort of happened. Little victories, you know? Dalish went a whole day once without cutting herself after using magic. Was a big deal. We had a party. She did better the next day too. Maybe not the day after that. Maybe she tried to hide it out of shame. But we did celebrate a bit at a time. I think the best parts were when a new person joined. The group works best when they want to make someone feel welcome.”

“Really?”

“Well, usually we don’t have a lot of joiners. Means somebody likely died. Like to keep the group small. And I really only take in the people who need it. Who couldn’t do it anywhere else. No other company would take them sort of deal.”

“Have you lost many?”

“Not many,” said Bull, with a sort of airy brightness that fooled neither of them. “Four. Patches, Sly, Riku, and Harp.”

“Over how many years?”

“This last year is five. And we didn’t lose anyone with the Inquisition. Not yet, anyway.”

Dorian wanted to ask, but refrained. Instead: “Who was the last?”

“The most recent to join you mean? Or to die?”

“Yes.”

“Harp died last. A real good lady. Harped in words and with her fingers. Also great with knives. Was slowing down because of her age. Damn, it hurt the team. She was like an irascible aunt but played like a songbird. Annoyed everyone, but when she was gone, the camp seemed empty. For joining? Grim was most recent. Found him somewhere in Fereldan just before we banded with the Inquisition. He doesn’t talk much.”

“At all.”

“Eh, what you will. But from what we can gather-“

“You mean spy on his reactions.”

“Whatever you call it, figure he was from some town hit by the Blight.”

“The last one?”

“Yeah. Not a lot of people know about it. Surprised you do. It was pretty localized before the big darkspawn was put down.”

“I didn’t know about it,” said Dorian honestly. “Only when I came down here, someone told me. I was quite skeptical, but the research backs it.”

The Iron Bull chuckled. “Good on you for researching.”

“Have to have sources.” They both picked up sticks to stir the fire at the same time, and the Iron Bull bumped his shoulder in Dorian, setting him swaying. He finished the story for Bull. “And so you took them all in. Then you met Trevelyan.”

“Same day I saw that dragon. A good omen.”

“You don’t believe in omens.”

“Nah, not really. Just felt like a good day is all. A good fight, a pretty decent human not treating me like shit. Krem liked her, and I trust his instincts.”

“So it was a good five years?”

“You know, the year before it doesn’t even feel real,” admitted Bull. “I was so fucked up after Seheron that running around just being a big guy with an axe feels like someone else’s life. When I think about stuff, it’s Par Vollen, Seheron, the Chargers, the Inquisition. No middle ground. No transitions.”

“And what’s after, do you think?”

The Iron Bull was silent for a moment. “I dunno,” he said, breaking the stick between his hands and throwing it into the fire. “Probably back to Par Vollen. The Qun will recall me and I’ll go.”

“And the Chargers?”

“Krem would take them.”

“Bull.”

“What?”

Dorian wanted to say _you’re breaking my heart,_ but thought it would sound melodramatic. He only leaned his head into Bull’s arm again.

“I’ve been thinking about it, is all,” he said quietly.

Bull was quiet too, and in one of his mental leaps that constantly astonished Dorian he said: “That’s the thing, huh?”

“What?”

“The thing that’s been eating you. What’s going to happen to us.”

“No,” protested Dorian. He wasn’t even sure if there was… well. He knew there was a shelf life. He just wanted to know the expiration date. To prepare himself.

“Honestly, I don’t know.” Bull took Dorian’s stick from his limp fingers and broke it apart. He threw each piece forcefully though his voice was calm. “I figured at least until Corypheus is dead. Or we are.”

“Lovely.”

“Just being realistic.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“If the Qun asked you to kill Trevelyan right now, would you do it?”

Bull stopped throwing. The remaining bits of twig dropped between stilled fingers, and he slanted a narrowed eye at Dorian.

“Did boss put you up to this?’

“What? No.”

“She’s clever. She hides it well too, pretends to be innocent.”

“Bull!”

“Just tell me if she did. Give me the decency at least.”

“She didn’t,” said Dorian, who was regretting asking every second that passed. “I just…forget it. It was a stupid question. I guess I know the answer.”

“Do you?”

Dorian stared at him. “You said you’d make that choice,” he said, in clipped accentuated tones that made him squirm inside. He hated sounding like his father, and yet invariably whenever he grew angry he would. “When it was me or Trevelyan. You’d pick her.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Well I’m just wondering if it’s her or the Qun.”

Bull’s lips thinned, pressing together until they were white in his greyish skin.

Dorian shook his head, dusting his hands on his pants as he pushed himself to his feet. He stood above Bull, feeling oddly towering, and Bull still stared brazenly back, refusing to be cowed. Dorian could hear his voice growing more venomous, more like his father, and speaking to Bull in a way he had only snapped at him once before, when he had used life magic.

“And if it was the Qun or Krem? The Qun or all the Chargers? What then?”

The Iron Bull was silent, but Dorian could tell from years of practice that though the Iron Bull held his facial muscles perfectly still, something in his eye flickered that wasn’t the campfire.

“Right,” said Dorian, his voice brittle. “And we know that I’m not enough.”

Then the Iron Bull spoke with a voice like stone, unfeeling but unsurprised. “I didn’t know you wanted to be.”

“Yes, well,” said Dorian, and he breathed out a long, shaky breath as he looked up at the dark branches of trees. “I didn’t know it either until now.”

He turned on his heel and stalked back towards the tent they shared with Varric and another scout. It was early for sleep, but Dorian didn’t care. He pushed his way through the flap, crawled into his filthy bedroll, and pressed his face into the stuffed bolster that served as a pillow.

How had the conversation gone so wrong?

He had been enjoying Bull’s story, the easy familiarity of his company, knowing that a year had passed since they had met and that Bull could do things with his hands that ought to be illegal. Dorian had never been so furious with anyone, including his own father. How _dare_ Bull not see he had been building his own family? And how humiliating for Dorian to tip his hand how badly he wanted to be included. How he wanted the Bull to adopt him. To look at him and tell him he didn’t need to be fixed. Tell him he would work with him to adapt to the world as he was. To be the family Dorian so desperately needed, instead of the family he had.

 _Stupid ass,_ he thought angrily. _You are a cliché and a pathetic metaphor of the worst names you’ve been called. You deserve them all because you are nothing, and Bull knows it. He’s seen the worst of you and wants none of it. You imbecile, you cunt, you moron. You are worse than nothing. You are trash. Monstrosity. Abomination! Your father was right all along._

In a swirling fit of anger and misery, Dorian tipped a sleeping potion down his throat, hoping a long unconsciousness would make the next day more bearable. His last thought was that Bull, damn him, would know what Dorian had done. Dorian always snored when he took a potion, and the Iron Bull noticed everything.

* * *

“Do you mind if we take a detour on the way back to Skyhold?” asked Trevelyan the next morning. “Leliana sent a raven. The Qun want to meet.”

Bull snapped up his head in surprise. “What? I didn’t hear that.”

“She sent the letter with it.” Trevelyan handed the scroll to Bull who almost snatched it from her fingers in his haste.

“Why wouldn’t they ask me?” Bull growled, his eye jerking across the page.”

“Where’s the detour?” asked Dorian.

“The Storm Coast. Same place we met Bull.”

“I don’t really like the Storm Coast,” complained Varric. “It’s too rainy. Makes my hair frizz.”

“They’re sending a Dreadnought,” said Bull, his voice gravelly with frustration and surprise.

“What’s a Dreadnought?” asked Varric.

“A warship,” said Dorian grimly. Qunari Dreadnoughts were the stuff of Tevinter legend. Thousands of soldiers and civilians had lost their lives to them.

“They’re willing to give us naval power if we make an alliance,” said Trevelyan.

The Iron Bull had finished reading and had switched to Leliana’s carefully annotated notes. Dorian could see his frustration bleeding through as he carefully translated using the cypher of the week in his head. The fact Bull didn’t need pen and paper was impressive. Dorian also noticed Trevelyan didn’t either.

“Boss, this is huge,” said Bull, carefully folding the paper back up and handing it over. His fingers were twitching slightly, causing ripples in the paper.

Varric glanced at Dorian, and Dorian glanced away at a tree, unenthusiastically chewing on more oatmeal from his tin plate.

“Yes, naval prowess would certainly make the Inquisition – “

“No,” said Iron Bull, who so rarely interrupted the Inquisitor she stopped talking at once. “The Qun. They haven’t ever made an alliance. Not with any country. Not with anyone.”

“So let’s not keep them waiting,” smiled Trevelyan. “We’ll start traveling today. It’s a far journey. Three weeks I would guess, pushing hard. I’ll tell Leliana when we’re shooting for. That way the Qunari representative doesn’t have to wait long.”

“He’ll wait as long as he needs to. The Qun are patient.”

Dorian avoided Varric’s eye again, and went to roll up his bedroll.

The journey _was_ long. It was made longer by the fact that Dorian rebuffed even the softest of advances by Bull to pass the time. He spoke little. He didn’t ignore Bull outright, but the coldness Dorian presented to everyone had Trevelyan pulling him aside.

“Dorian, what is going on with you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Did you and Bull get –“

“Be careful what words you use next.”

Trevelyan raised her eyebrows at him, and Dorian cursed himself for talking so unguarded to her, a woman who was his only employer in a land that hated him.

“My apologies,” he smoothed, blowing his breath out in tiny silent spurts from his nostrils. “A headache today.”

Even as he said it, he knew it was true. He hadn’t noticed, only been squinting through the bright white world of an overcast sky. If Bull had known he had a headache he hadn’t said anything.

“Dorian. Are you going to be able to do this?”

Of all the questions she could have asked, Dorian wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “What?”

“Pair up with the Qun. I know they aren’t exactly popular in Tevinter.”

“Not exactly popular,” Dorian repeated with the faintest trace of surprise.

Trevelyan rolled her eyes. “All right, hated. Happy? And do I have to send you back to Skyhold? I can do this with just Varric and Bull.”

Dorian felt his face flame up at the insult. To be thought so weak as to not be able to accompany the Inquisitor to an official diplomatic meeting. For personal reasons.

“No,” he said, swallowing anything else. “You’ll have no problem from me.”

Trevelyan cocked a faint eyebrow at the inflection in his words but let it go.

Dorian rejoined the rest of the group with something like shame and misery clawing behind his eyes. He ate his dinner with teeth grinding solicitude (ground meat stuffed in in peppers, a Tevinter preparation that Trevelyan obviously prepared as a silent gesture of apology). He went to bed without speaking much to anyone, holding his book open before his eyes to pass the time, even turning a page when it felt appropriate, but not reading.

It was past midnight, and the men’s tent was dark when the Iron Bull finally spoke. “What did she say to you?”

Dorian, turning over on a hip, caught his breath in a loud hiss in the silence. He sat up, staring at the dark shape of Bull and then struggled out of his covers, sweating in the humid air, and pushed his way out into the starless night. He heaved in a wet breath as he crashed into the treeline, away from the scouts. He needed air.

“Dorian?”

Dorian jumped half a foot at the hesitant quiet voice of the Iron Bull just behind him. Bull moved soft when he wanted to.

“If you’re going to come, then come,” said Dorian, and was horrified to hear his voice warped with anger and sadness in measure.

The Iron Bull said nothing else, only caught up to Dorian’s shoulder as they walked around the curving stone bluff. They were in the Storm Coast region now, and there was a mist that clung to the grass and shrubs, silvering Dorian’s hair and dripping down Bull’s harness.

Dorian stopped beneath the shade of several trees; it was very dark, and very late.

The Iron Bull said nothing, and Dorian knew his previous question still stood. Bull thought nothing of leaving large gaps of time between conversations, picking them up as if there had been no interruption.

“She wanted to send me back to Skyhold,” Dorian said aloud.

Bull shifted his weight, but said nothing.

“She thought I might not be able to handle Tevinter’s sworn enemy or some such nonsense. That I would be…that I couldn’t… _fuck_!”

He yelled the last word into the darkness and rounded on Bull. “Do you even understand why I’m so angry with you?”

Bull still said nothing.

“And see? I can’t tell if this is a tactic or you really don’t understand.”

The Iron Bull’s dark voice surprised Dorian into jumping. “Try me.”

“It’s because…Maker, it’s so obvious. Fuck. You’re so stupid. You’re just so stupid. You’ve made a life for yourself here. You’ve made a family. And you love them, even if you won’t admit it to yourself. Even if you think you can’t love anyone. Even if you’re from the Qun. You _love_ them. You love Krem and you love the Chargers and you love your job. You love being smart and being funny and being in the Inner Circle and if you left now and went to the Qun you’d never have any of that again and you’re not even willing to fucking stand up and say _no_. Not even willing to fight for it. Not willing to fight for _any_ of it. Not for them, and certainly not for me. And how am I supposed to think – what am I – I _fucking_ love you I think and I’m furious that you don’t love me and that I wanted to trust you more than I’ve ever wanted to trust anyone and you tell me you’re a goddamned spy and I _know_ you are and I trusted you anyway. You warned me and I’m furious at myself for thinking you could change. For thinking I might be worth enough to change for and even if I’m not _even if I’m not_ that the rest of the people were; that maybe I could just be a feather on the scale. That I might be counted in your stupid little family that you love - that you adore - and that you could send to their deaths without second thought. That maybe you’ll kill me and maybe you’ll be sad about it but what’s it in the end, right? Huh? Another dead Vint. And kill Krem too. Hilarious! A victory for Par Vollen, two dead Vints and a lonely Qunari. FUCK. Literally fuck just everything. I’m so angry at you I don’t even know how to say it. I’m so angry because I wanted you to love me. I wanted you to…love anyone. To prove you’re human.”

There was a breathless silence, and slowly Bull said: “But I’m not human.”

“Hey? Fuck you. I am this close to killing you myself. Or maybe just hurting you. Maybe hurting you so bad you’d finally understand what it feels like to look at you and know everything you are will be yanked away and that I’m an idiot for pretending. Maybe if I just…made you less useful. Maybe if you had to fight me. Maybe if I told Trevelyan it was to protect her.”

“You want to fight me?”

“I want to fight you because I want you to fight back. I want you to _do_ something. Anything. Break my body over your knee, smile down at me. Notice me. Pretend you care. Kill me, I don’t care. I want you to _see_ me. I want you to fucking acknowledge who has been sharing your bed and laughing with you and trusting you even though I’m a fool. Now I see it. But I trusted you with stories no one has ever heard and you’re going to throw that all away – you’re going to throw away the eye you gave up fucking selflessly – even though the Qun was probably mad you damaged their property – even though Krem would leap in front of you for any projectile no questions asked – even though you’re trying to make the world a better place full of broken people one at a time and even though you’re in an organization that I fucking believe in that I gave up my home and my family and my own language to come to. I just – _FUCK_ – I just – FUCK SERIOUSLY FUCK. I can’t do this. Maker, fuck, I can’t. I can’t do this Bull. I don’t know why you – I just can’t.”

Dorian realized he was crying in the dark in the gasping sobs and the half-shouted accusations. His throat was hoarse. His head hurt.

“Fuck,” said Bull quietly into the silence.

Dorian half burbled a laugh. “Fuck.”

“You’re right. I didn’t get all of that.”

Dorian half staggered against a tree, then slid down it, feeling it cut his back. Beneath his fingers was a carpet of splintering dried pine needles.

“Just…Maker, just leave me alone then. Just…if you’re…fuck. Just if you’re going to…if you’re going to go back – just let’s just – save me this fucking misery, okay? One more mission, then I’m done.”

Bull walked several feet away, rubbing the back of his head and breathing out. Dorian could hear the scratching of skin on stubble more than see.

“Love is a myth in the Qun,” said Bull abruptly to the darkness. His words traveled away from Dorian; Bull had his back turned.

“What?”

“Love. It’s a myth. We’re raised to believe that lower, less rational life forms use love as a way to explain chemicals in the brain being released when a certain action is performed, such as physical contact, sexual climax, or performing a difficult task for someone. We’re taught that society can ‘love’ each other by performing these same tasks. To show favoritism in the Qun to one person to the exclusion of all is to fail in its teachings.”

“One person?” said Dorian, shaking his head. “You don’t even love your friends?”

“There are no friends. Only groupmates when you’re young. If you aren’t seen getting along with someone you’re forced into a pairing with that person for months on end until you get along – or fake it well enough – to socialize with others.”

“But you do _feel_. There are people you don’t like.”

Bull shrugged in the dark, and Dorian saw him turn around, blindly facing Dorian’s shadow. “Sure. We’re still people. You have people you like a little more and people you can’t stand. But you treat them all the same. You just hope the people you like can tell it’s not an act with them.”

Dorian sighed in the darkness. How to even explain he needed more than hoping he could tell Bull might be particular about him despite –

“When I left the Qun, being outside of Seheron even, I thought the rest of the world was messed up. I agreed with the Qun that there should be some order. People were viciously rude to shopkeepers or tavern workers for no reason.”

Dorian realized Bull was nice to _everyone_.

He understood.

“They kicked dogs in the street. They were just generally unpleasant and unhappy, even though to me, the observer, I could see what made them unhappy and I wanted to fix it. But when I tried people got scared. Got defensive. I had to be miserable watching them be miserable. The Qun seemed so rational then. I couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t join them. They would all be happier.”

Dorian sighed, wiping a hand under his nose then working his fingers into his eyes. _Stupid. Emotional. Hysterical_. All the words his father used when he grew angry.

“Working as a mercenary meant almost everyone was upset all the time. Noticed a lot of guys I worked with used situational humor. Trying to defuse, that sort of thing. I copied them. Seemed to work better. I didn’t get why my humor was so off the mark though. I had tried to cheer them up after someone died. I was driven out of that group for being too messed up. Learned there were left and right limits to when and where. Went from there. By the time I met Krem I had mimicked the speech patterns well enough. Knew the situations. Knew the calls for another round, knew the signs of dropping for an early night. But I didn’t really _get_ it. You know?”

Dorian closed his eyes. It was almost as dark behind his eyelids, but the darkness seemed more pervasive with them open. The glimmers of faint cloudy starlight, the silver mist, it made it more expansive, somehow. He laid down on the pine needles and smelled the sharp scent of them breaking beneath him.

“Working with Krem, I think he realized I thought most humans were…well, stupid. He was the one to point out how crazy parents got when they thought they lost their kids. How much a sister can love her sister. That kind of ripping loss was more foreign to me than anything. I hadn’t ever thought of putting a world into a person before. In a way, it reinforced the Qun. Look how sad people were, losing them. They even use that exact word: _loss_. When you lost a soldier in Seheron it was a damn shame. It was hard to plan battle. You missed their unique skillset. They were super good at carving a path. Great at holding back a wave. But you didn’t really miss _them_.”

The Iron Bull had let his feet wander back towards Dorian, and he was staring down at Dorian’s shape under the tree. Dorian had his eyes closed, buried into the crook of an elbow. The Iron Bull sat down next to him, the pine needles crunching. Bull leaned back against the tree, his legs stretching out parallel to Dorian’s body, his boots near Dorian’s head.

“Maybe the Qun is smart,” Dorian said, his voice flat. “It is stupid to put the world in one person.”

He could feel Bull looking at him, feel the understanding crashing between them. Braced himself for the hot hand over his ankle, his thigh. But there was nothing but the cool mist. The branch shadows latticing the purpling sky.

“You’ve lost someone,” said Bull instead.

“Yes.”

“And you think you’re losing me.”

Dorian did not respond.

The Iron Bull sighed, rubbing the back of his neck before resuming. “This idea of…of building intimacy with people. Single people, I mean, at a time. It started in the Chargers. As a group. I would know their strengths and weaknesses. Like I said, we’d celebrate the little victories. But then I noticed I was…I was protective of them. More than I would have been of soldiers. Probably because I thought they were weaker. Not able to handle it.”

Dorian closed his eyes again. Breathed in the smell of pine. Didn’t jerk at the feeling of Bull’s bent knee shifting into his hip, resting there for contact, even through two layers of cloth.

“But it started happening more. Even when they were good. Even when Krem was good. I got weird. Protective. They teased me. Told me I was mother henning. I laughed. I was. It was a good time. But I still didn’t get it.”

“And then?”

“Patches died first. She was a good kid. Had that skin, you know, with the different colors. She was pretty but didn’t think she was. I left the door open. I think a few years down the road she might have gone for it. Might have worked up the nerve. Before she met Krem, she was basically a slave. Scrubbing shit out of pots for some lord for a night of drinking money until we came along. Volunteered to do anything, even be a camp girl, though she blushed up when she said it. Krem gave her a sword instead. You’d have thought he’d given her the moon. Krem was sweet on her, I could tell. He was devastated when she caught an arrow to the throat.”

“And you?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Bull. “I had never felt anything like it. I had lost plenty of people of course. Hundreds. Killed hundreds. Even a few close…what you might call almost friends in the Qun. People you knew a long time. It was only when Krem explained I was doing something called grieving did I start to think I had been wrong about the way people treated each other. I had been so upset they hadn’t treated each other all the same, I hadn’t realized what it meant to a person to be treated _special_. What it meant to me when Krem said Patches had loved me.”

Bull’s voice had grown hoarse, and even despite himself, even knowing the hopelessness of the situation, Dorian shifted so his hip pressed more firmly into Bull’s knee.

Bull smiled a white stripe in the darkness. “So, love? Yeah, I guess so. I guess I caught this foreign disease. I don’t say it though. But I think – I think Krem knows.”

“You should say it,” said Dorian, his voice sharp with multiple edges. “Because if this Qun meeting goes South – “

“Funny saying, going South.”

“Tevine,” said Dorian modestly. “Means going to hell.”

“Or basically anything below the Anderfells.”

“Exactly.”

Bull scrunched down the tree and rested his horns between the roots. He and Dorian were laying head to toe, and this time Dorian felt a nudge at his elbow. He lifted his hand from where it had been folded on his chest. He reached blindly for Bull. He was taller, so they only linked the tips of their fingers.

“Fuck,” said Dorian calmly towards the trees. “What are we going to do.”

“We’re going to this meeting.”

“And then? If they order you back right then?”

Bull was silent.

“You’re going.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Would you even say goodbye? Would you even see the Chargers or would you get on the Dreadnought without a word?”

“Dorian.”

“What?”

“Don’t –“

“Make this harder? Fuck you, I’ll make it harder if I want. This is hard enough for me. Feeling like – feeling –“

“It’s my entire world,” said Bull in a low voice. “Turning away from it makes me Tal-Vashoth. Do you know what that means? A criminal. I could be hunted down for the rest of my life from leaving the Qun.”

“Don’t you hear how crazy that sounds? If they’re so great and wonderful, why do they sound like a fucking cult that won’t let you leave?”

The Iron Bull was silent.

“And so what? So you’re whatever Vashoth.”

“Tal-Vashoth. And I’ve killed dozens of them. Just for existing.”

“And that would make you wrong.”

“Well-“

“Well nothing, you fuckwit. People are wrong. Did you execute them?”

“What?”

“Were they fighting back?”

“They were mostly criminals. The Qun doesn’t like qunari being criminals. Gives us a bad name.”

“Oh sure, but cultists are fine.”

“Dorian.”

“What?” Dorian felt slightly bad, but refused to give ground. “Just because you’re exiled from your homeland – how long has it been, anyway, since you were in Par Vollen?”

“Uh…probably about fifteen years.”

“Oh yeah? And you don’t have friends or family? Are you so in love with a city you want to go home to it?”

“The city isn’t really important. It’s just the leadership-“

“The leadership? You want to talk leadership?” Dorian pulled his fingers from Bull’s. “Trevelyan is a leader. You’re a leader. You’re changing the world just being here. Just being in the Inquisition and being a qunari in a prominent place of power. The Iron Bull. You’re changing it, and they don’t want you to.”

“You don’t understand –“

“You’re right! I don’t understand. How can you want to leave all this –“

“I don’t want to leave.”

“Well then fine! Don’t leave!”

“Fuck.”

Dorian breathed out. “Look. This is hard. It’s not just me. I know it’s hard for you too. I know I’m being selfish. But I also know I’m begging for more than just me. Krem would want me to. Trevvy would. Sera would. Cullen, who will hit Cullen when you’re sparring?”

Bull rumbled something like a chuckle and something like a sigh.

“I mean, you don’t want to leave, so you’re duty bound to leave?”

“Something like that.”

“Yeah? So you’re loyal to the Qun?”

“Yeah.”

“And are they loyal to you?”

“What?”

“The Qun. They’ve _always_ taken your best interest to heart. Recalled you after Seheron. Answered your letters while you were wandering around Tevinter as a mercenary. You had a good year, right? Got all the brain fixing you wanted. They treated you well. They didn’t just throw you away, hoping you’d fix yourself and find a new appointment. Like you did. When did they start harassing you again? When you were with the Chargers? Or when you joined the Inquisition?”

“I sent messages,” but Bull’s voice was defensive. “On jobs and political notes on nobles.”

“And did you get congratulations back? Money?”

Bull was silent.

“Oh yes, duty and honor,” said Dorian, very sarcastically.

“You don’t understand,” muttered Bull again.

“The fuck I don’t.”

They lay in silence for five minutes, until Dorian’s rapidly pounding heart calmed and he became aware of Bull’s fingers on his wrist.

“Oh you fucking cheat,” he fumed, yanking it away.

“Dorian?”

“ _What_.”

“Do you really love me?”

“I don’t know,” growled Dorian. “Right now no. Right now I’m just…I’m just…”

“Just laying out here in a forest at night.”

“Yeah. That.”

“Yeah,” said Bull, his voice low. “That.”

“It’s not like no one has been in love with you before,” snapped Dorian peevishly. “Half the people in the castle are. Krem is.”

“Krem likes women. And the others don’t know me. They just like the way I look.”

“Well –“ but Dorian could come up with nothing clever, only weak retorts. He sat up and then looked down at the shape of the Iron Bull against the pine needles. “You’re really stupid, you know that?”

The Iron Bull likewise sat up, but let Dorian pull him forward. “How do you mean?”

“It took you this long to react to that particular bit of news. You’re supposed to latch onto it first.”

“I wanted to save the best for last.”

“You’re not making it easier.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because,” and Dorian was embarrassed to hear his voice grow rough with emotion. “Because it’s right here, in the dark in the stupid wet and the mist and the itchy forest. I just. Fuck. I just love you. And I want you to stay with me. And I want to…I want to…” his voice shook embarrassingly but he valiantly continued: “I want to be enough.”

“Oh _kadan_.”

Dorian didn’t know what the word meant, but he looked away from the dark shadowy face of Bull’s expression. “For once,” he added softly. “I just wanted to be enough for once.”

“Please,” the Iron Bull said quietly, his voice ravaged. “Please just…just come here. Please.”

Dorian let Bull guide him into his lap and then he sighed, closing his eyes as Bull’s arms went around him. He leaned into the warm chest of Bull, feeling the moisture steam between them with his combined body heat.

“I know it’s not the most glamorous setting,” said Bull.

“No,” said Dorian at once. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“The tent is shared.”

“But here?”

“Tomorrow…” Bull trailed off, and Dorian heard what he meant. _One last time_ , in case.

“Ah.”

“You don’t have to.”

“A proper goodbye?”

“Fuck, I don’t know Dorian. I don’t! I don’t know.”

“My answer is still yes.”

“What?”

“To the last time. Let’s go one last round.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“But it’ll be worse if –“

“I know.”

“And you want to…to suffer, for me?”

Dorian blew out a breath. “I would suffer…anything, I think, for you.”

The Iron Bull looked away, his hand going up to tug on a horn thoughtfully.

“On your back,” he said huskily instead, and Dorian let the big warm hands lay him down on a bed of pine needles and pull his pants down.

There was no warm up. Only Bull’s hot breath before he had taken Dorian in his mouth and Dorian’s breath stuttered on the inhale.

It was as though the Iron Bull was trying to communicate his feelings without words, through nudges and sucks and open mouthed kisses. He trailed deeper, digging his hands beneath Dorian’s hips. Dorian tried to shake his head in the grass, tried to protest he hadn’t showered. But the Iron Bull didn’t stop, not even with his hot, tortuous tongue rimming Dorian until he was panting, his feet slamming into the dirt and trying to scoot backwards from the punishing sensation of Bull smiling privately as he inserted the tip and began to work Dorian open.

A finger followed, hooking around in circles as Dorian squirmed.

“Bull, tonight, please,” he gasped.

The Iron Bull stopped, he glanced up between Dorian’s legs, his face indistinct in the darkness. “You sure?”

“If it’s the last time? Fuck, yes, I’m sure.”

“Dorian,” Bull’s voice was pained.

“Please,” Dorian begged. “If it’s just once, it’s now, right? If – if –“

Bull rested his head on the inside of one of Dorian’s knees, and Dorian felt something wet when Bull pulled his cheek away. “Okay,” he agreed quietly. “For you, _kadan_ , anything.”

Though he and the Iron Bull had been sleeping together for six weeks, they had only tried once for Bull to penetrate. Dorian wasn’t used to the girth and it had been so painful the first time he had gasped _katoh_ and they had taken a two-hour break while Dorian apologized, shaking.

“We don’t have to,” Bull had assured him. “Ever, if you want.”

“Bull – “

“It’s not a milestone. Not something to prove that our relationship is ‘real enough.’ It’s whatever we want. You’re beautiful enough to do anything to, not just one thing.”

Dorian had gone brilliantly red and let Bull pull him off afterwards.

Now Bull took his time. Dorian came over his own bared stomach with a hiss so hot he squirmed beneath it, his skin chilled from the mist, the heady scent of pine needles imprinting themselves into his brain.

And still Bull pressed on, scissoring Dorian wider than he thought possible, pushing three fingers into him, pressing around to make sure Dorian was open enough, that he was soft enough that he –

“Maker, Bull, please,” panted Dorian, already half hard and twitching against his own sticky skin.

Bull looked more nervous than Dorian felt, aligning himself with clenched fingers into Dorian’s thighs, which Dorian knew would bruise from the pressure. He forced himself to be distracted by them, instead of the steady stretch, the flashes of pain he tried not to spasm against.

Bull’s fingerprints on his skin, the only things left behind when he was gone. And even they would fade, after a time.

Suddenly Bull slipped in the rest of the way, all at once, and Dorian grunted against the fill, the press on all sides of him, the thrumming of his prostate, the pulsing of Bull’s cock.

“Fuck,” whispered Dorian.

Bull panted, unable to speak.

Dorian wriggled a hip. “Fucking move it will you? I’m not a virgin, you know.”

Bull seemed to recall himself and shifted on his knees. Dorian could tell Bull was keeping his expressions open on purpose so that Dorian could share these last feelings with him. Could see the twinge of pain from his knee. Could see the slick sliding pleasure as Bull’s eyes squeezed shut. Could see the shoulder knotting tension building around his neck. The pulse of his jaw as he forced his eyes open, forced a hand to prize itself from Dorian’s hip and gently run a finger down his jaw.

Dorian opened his mouth. Tried to say something. Gasped.

The Iron Bull had changed pace, was drilling into Dorian with a dedicated efficiency that had him whimpering on every inhale as his own shaft rapidly filled and hardened, precum wetting his dried skin, the Iron Bull smiling in delight and despair in equal parts.

“Don’t,” panted Dorian, as Bull took his hand back. “Don’t go away.”

Bull smiled bitterly in the sudden moonlight lacing through the trees.

“Stay,” Dorian begged, commanded, wept. “Please. Stay.”

Bull came silently, not like his usual grunt of effort, with a hot sigh that cut through the mist like a knife. Dorian could feel the cum running out of him, feel his muscles contracting even as Bull kept pushing, kept moving, his own sensitivity intoxicating in his full body spasms, trying to push Dorian to the edge.

Dorian felt his legs stiffening. Knew he was close, but he fought. Rocked against Bull, thrashed his head side to side in denial. If he didn’t come, he could stay on this edge forever. Could keep Bull here forever. Would never need to watch the mist turn to rain, for Bull’s shuttered face to fall back into place.

“Dorian,” Bull was saying.

 _No_. It wasn’t fair. He refused.

“Dorian –“

He couldn’t think. Couldn’t see. If Bull would just stop he could –

“ _Kadan_ , breathe. Remember to breathe.”

Dorian realized he had no air and he drew in a huge juddering breath and came in the same instant, crying out in rage and frustration at the white-hot molten feeling, the full body spasms, coming harder than he had in years, overwhelmed and overstimulated.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

It was over.

There was a silence before Bull sat back off his heels onto the ground, leaving Dorian feeling spent and empty.

Dorian realized there were hot tears trickling between the corners of his eyes and his ears.

“I’ll always think of you,” said the Iron Bull in a strangely thick voice. “ _Always_ , when I smell pine needles and smoke and oranges.”

Dorian couldn’t help it. He broke. He turned on his side and wept into the ground, the pine needles filling his nostrils. He wanted to beg Bull don’t leave. But he had done that, hadn’t he? And it had changed nothing. He wanted to give vent to his feelings. Find words, but the words were used up, and he was left lying in the cool dirt, his entire mind and body hypersensitive, a raw and exposed nerve.

“Come on,” said the Iron Bull, approaching him.

“I can’t,” said Dorian, flinching back. “Please. This was…I can’t. No more.”

The Iron Bull stared down at him for a long moment. He intuited Dorian’s meaning. There would be no other goodbye. No more interaction until it was over – one way or the other. This was the most intimacy Dorian could give, and everything beyond it just a pale shadow to the dead of night.

Quietly, Bull pulled on his pants, his boots. Then he stood and left without another word.

Dorian cried.

When he finally returned to the tent, the great shadow in the corner was breathing low and evenly. Dorian fell into bed and didn’t dream.


	10. The Storm Coast, Skyhold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hurt COMFORT

“Gatt,” called Bull, a smile carving through his stoic face. Bull had kept it expressionless all morning, a strange enough occurrence that even Varric had picked up on his nervousness. No one had said anything.

Dorian hung back a few paces while Trevelyan shook hands with the elf.

“Hissrad,” laughed Gatt. “I can’t believe you have your own company now.”

“Yeah,” Bull said easily. “They’re good too.”

“You set them up for the easier job.”

Bull only shrugged. “They still have to wipe out the Venatori to gain the position. You’ll see.”

“And we have to climb up a hill to light a signal fire. At least theirs isn’t so steep.”

“Ah, going soft?”

“Was going to accuse you of the same thing.”

“Hissrad?” asked Trevelyan politely.

“It means weaver of illusions.”

“Liar,” said Gatt flatly. “It means liar.”

Bull only smiled, but Trevelyan shot a covert look while carefully smoothing her short ponytail back at Dorian.

Dorian refused to see it. So Bull liked the person who would order him away. Better for him.

“I didn’t realize the Qun had more races than qunari.” Trevelyan’s small talk was strained, but they had to kill time to give the Chargers the time to march.

“Ah, yes, well they recruit us mostly from Tevinter, and we usually serve abroad as the face of the Qun. For some reason big qunari tend to scare people.” Gatt slapped a lazy backhand across Bull’s enormous mantle belt.

The Iron Bull did not smile this time, but neither did he move.

“But you’re Dalish? How did you join the Qun?”

“He didn’t tell you?” asked Gatt in disbelief.

“Gatt.”

“What?” asked Trevelyan, genuinely curious.

“Oh, my whole clan was slaughtered when I was too young to remember it. Was sold into slavery in Tevinter. Hissrad saved my life when I was eight. I was a boy slave to a magister. He took me along for _company_.”

Dorian unfocused his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see the nasty look on Gatt’s face. But he could not block the implication. Could not block the truth. Body slaves were common in Tevinter, though child ones were considered vulgar.

“I’m sorry,” said Trevelyan, withdrawing into herself. Her voice was coolly neutral.

“The Qun gave me purpose. A sense of belonging.”

Dorian’s tongue got the better of him.

“Ah yes, without that pesky notion of freedom.”

“More freedom than being a slave.” Gatt was vibrating where he stood, and Dorian realized he was spoiling for a fight.

Perfect.

“The Qun is barbaric.” A blanket statement. He was winding up for a more nuanced one, happy to finally find a vent for his frustrations when Trevelyan interrupted.

“Dorian.”

“What? Don’t you agree?”

There was a long, tense silence where Dorian bared his teeth in a smile he had learned from Iron Bull.

“No,” said Trevelyan, never taking her eyes off Dorian. “Tevinter’s worse.”

Gatt gloated and Dorian looked away, taking the not-so-subtle hint. The Inquisitor’s eyes had softened, just for an instant, so he would know she didn’t mean it. This was politics. Strategic maneuvering. It only made him feel worse. Everyone would be complicit in Bull’s leaving. No one would say a thing as he went.

He refused to look at Iron Bull, who had said nothing during the encounter at all. He was pretending not to hear, searching the far hill for signs of Krem and the others.

“They’ve gained the hill,” he said suddenly, breaking the tense silence. “We should go.”

“Yes,” said Trevelyan, grateful for the lead. “Let’s go.”

“After you, boss,” said Bull, and Dorian wasn’t the only one who caught the faint trace of _something_ in Bull’s tone.

They began to hike upwards and Dorian tried to keep himself busy, but it was impossible. The climb reminded him too much of his first venture out with Bull. His sliding down the slope and ringing Dorian’s spell. His cheeky offering of company. His thumb wiping blood from Dorian’s chin, the assessment of Dorian’s headache with a quick, practiced eye.

Dorian pushed it from his mind with effort, but more memories came flooding in. Bull’s hot breath in his ear as he lifted him from the rubble. Dorian’s hitched half sobs against his chest, holding onto his leather chest harness with numbed fingers as they left the flooded ruins of Crestwood. The first time Bull had complimented him. _Expressive eyes._ The way Bull had tried to protect him from pushing too hard. That day in the Oasis. The water fight, the burning kiss on his forehead. Emprise du Lion. His stubbornness in pushing on, Bull carding fingers through his hair, warm bodies sharing a cot. Their first kiss, twisted in the soft sheets of Dorian’s bed, Bull dreaming beside him as he slept. The dance in the gardens, the personal one. The soft begged promises of tomorrow. The dragon day. A terrifying day. A drinking day. The steaming water of the tub and the scant privacy of a folding screen. The wild abandon and tumble, writhing wet and warm. The night of the pine needles, mist on Bull’s skin, wet on Dorian’s thigh.

Dorian realized he was about to cry.

“I’ll get it,” interrupted Varric, with such a gleeful tone that Dorian forgot for a moment where he was. Varric was loading Bianca, aiming the crossbow at the unsuspecting Venatori before pulling back and leveling one in a single shot.

“Nice,” observed Bull, his voice approving.

Dorian remembered it was time to fight, and he charged ahead, leaving his thoughts like dropped flowers behind him.

They gained the hill and Dorian could see the campfire the Venatori had been using would be perfect from the vantage.

“You ready?” asked Gatt.

“Give the signal,” said the Inquisitor. Her mask had dropped down now, more a shield than on her back. She had brought a plain unvarnished one today. That made Dorian more nervous than anything she had actually said.

Gatt dropped a small pellet into the fire which turned blood red and shot up a flare against the cloudy sky. Dorian hadn’t noticed it was raining. He was soaking wet.

Out of the mist on the sea sailed the largest tank ship Dorian had ever seen. It was plated in metal with rows of canons lining each side.

“Holy shit,” said Varric.

Dorian only stared in despair. With a ship like that, what couldn’t the Inquisition do? The shots from the Dreadnought were so staggeringly loud Dorian realized he had cramped his ear into his shoulder, trying to minimize the sound. A brief return volley from the beach and then –

“Boss,” said Bull, who hadn’t even been watching the show. “The Venatori.”

The Chargers were standing at their ease on a grassy knoll. Below them, climbing the steep rock, were the Tevinter mages. They outnumbered the Chargers two to one.

“Your men have to hold that position, Hissrad,” warned Gatt. “If they don’t, the Dreadnought is lost.”

“If they hold that position, they’ll die.”

Gatt only looked at him, and something happened in Bull’s face Dorian had never seen before. It was like someone had picked him up by the ears, his face a sieve, and the expression drained out of it and left something gritty behind.

“Bull!” Dorian couldn’t help his cracking voice. “Make the call!”

“No,” said Bull quietly. “Boss’ choice.”

Trevelyan looked up at him, panic scrawling across her features before she could catch it. A mistake for one nobly born to so easily show weakness.

“If you lose the Dreadnought, the alliance with the Qun is off.”

Trevelyan’s face had shuttered back into calm. She turned her head, and Dorian could see the wary figures of the Chargers, not knowing the creeping mages were coming up the incline. Soon they would be out of flight range. There were simply too many, and only Dalish had magic. Dorian had felt her magic too, the way a surveyor might discern how deep a well was. Hers was shallow, barely enough for a few good spells a day, mostly used in nudging and buffing. The Chargers would be slaughtered.

Dorian could practically see the tension in the Inquisitor’s shoulders. The smart choice would be to take the ship. Soldiers died. That was their job, more or less. It would be a political maneuver at a minimal cost. The Chargers were only a handful of people. With Bull they numbered less than 50 men altogether, and on the hilltop there were only eight. It was an acceptable risk, both to Bull and to the Inquisition.

Dorian knew it was smart. It made sense. And he also knew that both Bull and Varric had come to the same conclusion. Bull was holding his face still the way he had been taught. _You can never show the cost_ , he had said to Bull. As if Bull hadn’t always known. Hadn’t learned the exact same lesson. Dorian’s heart felt splintered at the belated knowledge.

So Krem would die. Krem was one man. So the others with Krem were Bull’s longest surviving men. No one survived forever.

But they were the cost. And they were very much here.

“Sound the retreat.” The Inquisitor’s voice was firm, clear, but low.

“What?” Gatt was flabbergasted.

The Iron Bull only looked at her. “You sure, boss?”

“I _said_ sound the retreat.” And this time Trevelyan did look angry, her voice barking with a hauteur she rarely used. Bull had questioned her authority in front of an outsider.

“You’re making a mistake,” Gatt said desperately.

Dorian felt something in him rising too fast and too furiously to even give name to it. His chest was swelling, his arms tingling with sudden lightness.

The Iron Bull raised a long curving horn to his lips and blew two long notes; the retreat signal. On the other hill, Krem raised an acknowledging hand and the Chargers began sauntering away, never knowing how close they had come to the Venatori gaining the slope.

The mages turned their fire instead on the Dreadnought. It was taking spell blasts from two quarters now.

“I am sorry,” Trevelyan told Gatt. “It’s a shame to let the ship sink.”

The Iron Bull looked at her strangely. “Sink?” he said, his hands going up to cover his ears. “Dreadnoughts don’t – “

The world exploded in sound, a concussive force of a bomb causing the metal ship to explode outwards and shred the mages on the beach into ribbons. Dorian was knocked from his feet, sprawling back into the grass even at a quarter mile away. His head ringing, he could hear Varric grumbling as he checked his crossbow.

“A little warning, next time,” Varric complained at Gatt, who had braced for the impact, his hands on his knees.

“You,” Gatt said with sudden venom into the silence. “ _You_.”

Dorian sat up quickly, in time to watch Bull straighten to his full seven feet.

“I _vouched_ for you! I told them you would _never_ turn! _Never!_ I told them you would rather _die_ than become Tal-Vashoth!”

The Iron Bull flinched all over as if the words had been a hail of arrows.

“I believed in you, Hissrad. I –“

“Don’t call him that.”

Both men turned to see Trevelyan pulling grass from the straps holding on her iron cuisses. She straightened, her eyes bright and furious.

“What?”

“His name.” Her voice was calm. “His name is Iron Bull.”

Dorian couldn’t look at Bull in that moment. It was too intimate. Bull was looking at Trevelyan, and Trevelyan was glaring at Gatt.

“I can’t believe you threw away an alliance with the Qun for _this_ ,” hissed Gatt.

“Not for this,” said Trevelyan. “For them.”

“What?”

“For them. On the hill.”

“A handful of soldiers? Are their lives worth more than _this?”_

“Yes.”

Silence.

Gatt was stupefied.

“Allying with the Qun was the smart choice,” conceded Trevelyan. She looked up from beneath her eyebrows, a dark look on her face. “But it wasn’t the right one. Men will die because I order them to. But I would never sacrifice _even one_ for something as meaningless as a ship.”

“Meaningless!” sputtered Gatt. “ _Meaningless!_ Thousands more will die because of your negligence! Thousands will be wrecked by the battle on the seas.”

“There is no battle on the seas,” said the Inquisitor flatly. “Unless you are telling me the Qun will make one. The future gain of naval dominance for the lives of men? What kind of trade is that.”

“An obvious one!”

“I agree,” said Trevelyan levelly, her voice so icy that Dorian wished Vivienne was here to see her handiwork in action. Trevelyan could have won a round of applause in the Tevinter magisterium, an accolade reserved for only the most vicious of public set downs.

“And _him_ ,” spat Gatt. “His years in Seheron? His years writing reports on nobles in the West? What of it? What will he be now?”

“He is the captain of an elite mercenary troop currently contracted with the Inquisition. He will not be unemployed.”

Dorian could feel something hot on the inside skin of his face, bursting to get out. He thought he might, quite literally, explode.

Bull looked for a long moment at the elf. “Are you going to kill me, Gatt?” His voice was friendly.

“No,” Gatt said after a long moment. “The Qun have already lost one good man today. Doesn’t make sense for them to lose two.”

Bull inclined his head, a gesture of thanks or respect, before Gatt turned to Trevelyan.

“This – this – _thing_ ,” Gatt said finally. He wouldn’t even look at the Iron Bull. “He is nothing now.”

“I’m glad our talks so clearly defined the boundaries between the Qun and the Inquisition. As you have pointed out, what is ours and what is yours no longer overlap. I will bid you a good day.”

Trevelyan turned so quickly Dorian almost didn’t regain his feet in time to stride after her. He purposefully went last, making sure to stay between Gatt and Bull in case the elf tried something.

When they had regained the tents in camp after a few minutes of walking, Trevelyan pulled Bull aside, peering into his dazed face. She spoke in a low voice to him before turning him loose. Bull’s face didn’t change; he only disappeared into the rain without a footfall.

“Don’t,” she said, when Dorian made to follow him. “He’s just lost everything.”

They held each other's gazes for a long moment, and then Trevelyan slung off her unadorned shield and left it in the grass behind her.

“Hey,” said a cheerful voice.

Dorian turned quickly. “Krem!”

Krem was unruffled. “Where’s Chief? Figured he’d be upset having the ship go up like that. Who would have foreseen it.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Krem frowned. “How do you mean?”

Dorian quickly explained the danger the Chargers had been in, which seemed impossible now that Rocky was pouring a slop of chili onto a battered metal plate. The others were lounging around a campfire, good-naturedly complaining about the mud soaking through their pants.

“And he’s all alone?”

“Yeah. The Inquisitor said to leave him alone.”

“She’s wrong,” said Krem at once. “You can’t leave him like this.”

Dorian narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“The Chief. The Qun’s all he’s got. You know? Some of us, not me, but some, we’ve got family back home. Get letters. Parcels. Bull’s got us, but nobody else. Only funny letters from his bosses. Did he tell you how we met?”

“His eye. Yes.”

“Yeah. And did he tell you he was in one of the best mercenary companies in the region when he was? Gave it all up, for me?”

Dorian shook his head. “No. He only said he moved around.”

“Sure he did. Fisher’s Bleeders. Bloodthirsty lot. But that’s how Chief was in the beginning. Before he got his head on right.”

“What?”

“Bloodthirsty. Angry at everybody and everything. The Qun mostly, but if you ever try to tell him that he’ll bite your head off. He did a lot of nasty business with them. I’m glad I met him when I did. He was still rough then, but had been hit around you know? Like a river rock. If I’d met him at the beginning, he’d have killed me as soon as look at me.”

Dorian half smiled. “Tevinter.” The word was bitter.

“Yeah, well,” shrugged Krem. “I don’t think about it much. Don’t talk about it much. Chief tries going around fixing broken people right? Right. Why? Because nobody ever did it for him. He had to do it all himself.”

Dorian nodded.

“So you have to think about this part now. You’re telling me that Chief lost the _only_ thing that kept him sane all those years doing Maker knows what on that island. And then he nearly lost us, who, as you know – “

“He loves.”

Krem paused. “What?”

“He loves you.”

“Come off it.”

“I mean it. He’s told me.”

“In those _exact_ words?”

“Well, I told him that he loved you.”

“You _what_?”

“He agreed. He said he did love you, but had never said it.”

“You like _me_ , Cremisius Aclassi, or you like _all_ of us, the Chargers.”

“Both. Thinks of you like a brother.”

Unexpectedly Krem’s eyes welled up and he turned away, shaking his head fast. “Look, if you don’t go after him, I will. He shouldn’t be alone right now. Dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

“To himself, mostly. Lost the two things keeping him tethered.”

Dorian blinked at Krem. His brain had gone white and staticky with sudden panic.

“And I can go,” Krem insisted hurriedly. “But I just know you and he…I mean, he’s…he’s fond of you.”

Dorian almost smiled. “Did he say that?”

“No.”

This time Dorian did smile.

“But it doesn’t matter,” Krem hurried to continue. “After he’s been out with you he hums when he washes in the rain barrel. He spends a real long time at the armorer comparing the scrollwork on knife hilts. He trawls the book cart every week for things to read, and I know they’re things you’ve mentioned because they’re almost all Tevinter authors. He actually polishes his boots and washes his clothes. Fucking bizarre.”

Dorian laughed, and a bubble of something hiccuped in his throat.

“He does care, you know. Just because he doesn’t say it.”

“Not enough.” Dorian didn’t mean for it to come out. Didn’t mean for it to sound so harsh.

“What do you mean?”

“I asked him to stay. For me. If the Qun called him back, I asked him to stay.”

Krem was already shaking his head. “Chief wouldn’t do that. Not for anyone.”

“I asked him to stay for more than me. For me, and for you, and for Trevelyan, and for the Chargers –“

But Krem was still shaking his head. “Come on, Dor,” and Dorian realized Krem had never called him that before, had never given him a fond nickname. His heart leaped at the inclusion. “Chief…” he blew out a breath. “He has this incredible sense of duty. And it’s not just to the Qun. It’s to the things he’s set his heart on. Like if he went away, right? To the Qun. I know the Chargers would get more jobs. He’d _make sure_ he was providing for us, best way he could.”

Dorian was silent. He had never considered that.

“He would have written to you, you know.”

Dorian had to look away. He couldn’t speak, only shook his head.

“Try not to rub it in, okay? Don’t be a dick about it.”

Dorian nodded.

“He’s just lost his home, his language, his family.” Krem rubbed the back of his head. He had recently shaved it again, and the stubble there was rough. He sighed out gustily. “Believe me. I understand.”

Dorian nodded again, his mouth and throat tight.

“Fuck. Sorry. I just…I just never expected Chief to…to do something like this.”

“Trevelyan made the call.”

“Yeah, but Chief abided by it. Could have sided with the other guy. Could have gone with him right here right now. And he _didn’t_.”

Dorian felt his eyes grow hot. He looked down at the grass.

“Go on,” urged Krem. “You better find him. Sooner, rather than later.”

Dorian nodded.

“Oh and uh –“ Krem rubbed his mouth. “Tell him…from me…tell him – you know.”

“Yes,” said Dorian. “I know.”

It took a while for him to find Iron Bull. Dorian wandered the trails hopelessly for an hour. He was never any good at the outdoor skills Blackwall possessed. Could never spot tracks, broken shrubs, footprints. He had been raised in a city of tile and stone. The nearest he had been to nature before running away was on holiday trips or planned landscaping.

It was only after he felt an utter fool did he think to cast a net. It was how he had reached out and found the life force of the deer. Dorian closed his eyes, for the first time realizing the rain was not-quite-rain and not-quite-drizzle, a sort of miasmic breath that plastered down his hair and dripped from his closed eyelashes.

The first things that flared in his perception were tiny smidges of gold hunkering beneath the surface. Mice, or rabbits, or squirrels, or whatever small woodland creature would live in this place. Then there was the camp, bright flares of people in his mind, hard to distinguish beyond the density of their life force. Dorian turned a slow circle, casting wider.

He opened his eyes.

He should have known where Bull would go.

Dorian’s heart was in his throat as he retraced their steps back up the cliffside to the long-dead Venatori fire. The Iron Bull was standing very near the edge of the cliff, shoulders slumped, looking out at the churning sea. Whatever was left of the Dreadnought had sunk or buried itself as shrapnel in sand of the beach.

“B-“ The first attempt he couldn’t even form the name. “Bull.”

The Iron Bull didn’t turn. Didn’t even seem surprised, though Dorian realized he had likely sounded like a wheezing windbag climbing the slope. How perfectly opposite from the first day they had met.

Dorian picked his way carefully around the bodies of the men still left sprawled in the dirt. Likely wolves would come for them, after Leliana’s scouts were done peeling the useful things off the bodies. Boots, for instance, were always in short supply. Belts. Intelligence. Potions.

“Are you…” Dorian’s voice failed him as he looked up at Iron Bull. From his perspective at Bull’s shoulder, he was looming, tall and lit from beneath in the setting sun, casting dark shadows across the crevices of his face, the deep trench scars on his head. Dorian studied Bull’s face the way he would have studied a corpse. His father had shown him his first corpse when he was nineteen. It had once belonged to his mother.

Dorian had worn the same look Bull had on his face right now.

“Bull,” Dorian forced his voice to be calm. “Please look at me.”

There was no response. No indication Bull had even heard him. He was only staring at the sheer drop in a familiar way that was twisting in Dorian’s stomach.

“Bull,” he said again, reaching a tentative hand towards a large elbow. He expected Bull to jerk it away, but Dorian laid it on the bare skin, surprised it was so cold.

How long had Bull been standing in the rain?

There was a slow shifting of movement. Dorian tried to dig his nails in as Bull shuffled his feet closer to the edge.

“What are you doing?” Dorian could hear the nervous hysteria creeping into his voice. “Stop. Please. Stop it.”

But Bull wouldn’t even turn.

“Krem says to tell you he loves you,” Dorian tried desperately, sure it would work. “I told him what you said. I told him that you – that he –“

Bull wasn’t listening. He was steadily unbuckling the harness of his chest strap.

“Stop. Stop! Bull, _stop_. _Katoh._ End. Stop.”

Then Bull did look at him, with a slow head swivel that sent thrills coursing down Dorian’s spine. “I’m trying,” he said calmly.

Dorian didn’t remember when he had started crying, only that it was very hard to breathe. “You can’t,” he said. “You _can’t_.” He was tugging on Bull’s arm uselessly, as both of them knew. Bull was several times stronger than Dorian on his best day.

“What is there left for me? Without the Qun. As Tal-Vashoth.”

“There’s _me_ ,” Dorian begged. “Please. I’m not – I know I’m not – but I’m something – there’s Krem – there are people you’ve helped. People who rely on you. I just want you here with me. And I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m not enough. And I’m _sorry_ that I was…that I made you…that – fuck. I’m sorry Trev-“

“Don’t,” said Bull, cutting an eye towards Dorian. “Don’t say that. That’s the one thing I’m _not_ sorry for.”

He finished unbuckling his shoulder straps and tossed the harness over the edge of the cliff. They watched it tumble down to the rocks below. Then, to Dorian’s surprise, Bull stepped back. Only a pace, but it was something.

“W-what-“

“Poison. Gatt slipped it under. Noticed late.”

The Iron Bull’s skin was burned a darker grey beneath where the straps had lain.

“It was slow acting. Would have been dead by morning.”

“I-“ But Dorian could find nothing to say save the obvious. “I thought you were going to-“

“Would you have caught me?”

Dorian glanced back at Bull’s face, and this time he was staring down, his expression indifferently curious.

“Yes.”

“With magic?”

“Yes.”

“But you already fought today. Do you have enough?”

Dorian wanted to lie to him, wanted to assure him, but knew from Bull’s expression he knew the truth.

“No.”

“And you were going to do it anyway?”

“Yes.”

“Any deer around?”

“No.”

“So what, life magic?”

“Probably.”

“You would have used up part of your life to save mine?”

“I would have used it all.”

There was a breathless silence where Dorian cursed himself internally for being so dramatic, for saying the thing that was true but not offering Bull the softer lie.

“Why?” Bull’s voice was frustrated, even as he turned his chin to the horizon, watching the beach.

“Why what?”

“Why would you give your life for mine? Especially if I didn’t want mine?”

“Because you’d have done the same.”

“What?”

“You’d have done the same. For me. You’d jump in front of anything, take any hit.”

“Yeah, but –“

“But?”

“But why would you do it for _me_?”

“Ah,” said Dorian, seeing it all at once. He very tentatively moved his hand from Bull’s elbow to his limp fingers. “Because I care about your happiness and safety more than mine own.”

 _“But why_? I’ve never done anything to earn that.”

“It’s funny,” said Dorian slowly. “Humans, and other cultures like humanity…you don’t have to _earn_ your affection. Don’t have to earn your place.”

The Iron Bull’s leg was shaking. It was his bad knee, and Dorian was still aware how close to the edge they were. How heavy Bull was. If he jumped and didn’t try to save himself how much energy displacement it would cost. How little magic Dorian had left.

“Then…” Bull groped for words. “How do…how do I earn the Chargers?”

“Earn them? You’ve already earned them. A hundred times over. You showed them compassion when they were hurting and they repay you in loyalty.”

“And the Inquisitor?”

“You don’t have to _earn_ your keep. You know Trevelyan would let you stay in Skyhold for free as long as you liked.”

“But I can. Earn it, I mean.”

“Right. With mercenary teams and intelligence-“

“I’m not a spy anymore.”

Dorian couldn’t help it. He laughed a short barking laugh that seemed to startle Bull more than anything. “You’ll be noticing things until the day you die. It’s just in your nature. But if you don’t want to compile reports for Leliana anymore, I’m sure they’d understand.”

“They’d let me?”

“Let you, Bull you’ve got inroads no one else has. You know you’re good at your job. Maker help me, I think you’re good at everything you set your mind to.”

Bull didn’t rise to the easy bait, which worried Dorian.

“I don’t want to be here,” he said softly.

“Well, yes, it’s this horrid rain. Makes everything cold and wet, and you’d better let me put a poultice on your chest.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Dorian swallowed. “I know.”

“But I don’t want to be at the Qun either. Keep thinking about what it would have been like. I’d be in the Dreadnought hold. Maybe Gatt would have taken my place. Would have been…too cut up about it. They’d have to reprogram me.”

Dorian tugged futilely on Bull’s hand, trying to draw him away from the cliff’s edge. But he wouldn’t move, rooted to the spot by the ashes of the fire that had signaled the Qun.

Dorian wondered where Gatt was now. If Bull sent up a flare, changed his mind, if Gatt could come get him. If he hadn’t already sent a raven. If it was far, far too late.

They both knew it was.

“What am I going to do.” The words weren’t even a question, but quiet and defeated.

Dorian breathed in a huge shaky breath. “Well, for starters, we’re going to walk down this hill. Then we’re going to put you in a tent and force you to dry off. You’re not as hot as you normally run you know, you might get sick-“

“Dorian.”

Dorian fell silent.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“But there’s no answer to that,” Dorian said desperately. “Even if we were doing our best to come up with a plan, it wouldn’t come to pass. All we can do is a little at a time. The next thing. And then the next. Until you can plan.

“Tal-Va-fucking-shoth.”

“You’re still you.”

“The Iron Bull, huh?” asked Bull with an edge. “A name picked at random. Becoming my whole identity.”

Dorian shrugged. “Kind of like everyone else then.”

Bull almost smiled. Dorian tugged on his hand, urging him down the slope.

“Krem is waiting, you know. Thinks you’re dashed to pieces on some rocks.”

“You wouldn’t have let that happen.”

“No,” said Dorian, skating thumbs over the back of Bull’s hands. “I wouldn’t have. Come on. It’s a really excellent chili tonight.”

“Really excellent,” Bull said, with a mocking attempt at humor. His feet moved the first steps away from the edge that they had taken in hours.

Dorian was nearly delirious with joy. “Yes,” he promised. “As much as you-“

He was interrupted tugging on Bull’s hand by Bull’s other arm coming around. For a wild, insane second Dorian was sure Bull was hitting him. But then the palm settled softly on his face, and Bull had tugged him a few steps closer, and bent down.

Bull’s face was slick with rain and freezing beneath Dorian’s lips. The kiss wasn’t particularly good, but it was particularly memorable because Dorian threw both his arms around Bull’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled against Bull’s neck. “Maker, I’m so sorry. Please just…just stay. We’ll do it a bit at a time.”

“I can’t believe,” Bull puffed a laugh into Dorian’s hair. “Krem sent you after me.”

“You can thank him later.”

“I’ll do _something_ later.”

They almost smiled at one another, but then Dorian tugged on Bull’s hand again, and didn’t let go until they were back in camp.

* * *

Dorian didn’t see much of Bull the next day. The cart to Skyhold was a full day of traveling, morning and night. The Chargers all piled into one cart together, everyone making excuses to sprawl against Bull, complaining good-naturedly at the lack of space. Even Grim leaned against Bull’s leg as he sharpened weapons on the floor of the cart, everyone else on the narrow bench seats jostling and passing around food and alcohol.

Dorian rode with Varric and Trevelyan in a separate cart, though the three of them watched the cart in front of them often, distracted by the rowdiness, the boasting, the drinking songs, the laughter.

“You made the right choice,” Varric offered, apropos of nothing.

Trevelyan sighed. “I know it was the right one. Let’s just hope my advisors don’t hang me for it.”

“They won’t,” said Varric, patting Trevelyan’s knee consolingly. “Cullen would have done the same. He never wastes a life.”

“I don’t know,” said Trevelyan unhappily.

“And Josephine is definitely on your side.”

“Leliana?”

“She’ll be disappointed,” said Varric. “Probably. The Qun’s spies are helpful. But she did just ally with the Crows, so it might not be too bad.”

“Ugh,” Trevelyan dropped her head between her hands, propped on her elbows. “Why does everything have to be so hard?”

“You can’t make everyone happy all the time.”

“I know. But I wish I could anyway.”

“And if you had made the other choice?” Dorian asked quietly. “And let them die? There’d be one cart back to Skyhold right now, and Bull would be here next to you.”

Trevelyan breathed out a shaky breath, then tapped once, twice, trying to find Dorian’s hand in the dark. They caught fingers briefly, and she leaned back.

“Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

* * *

Dorian hovered in the light soaked grass beaming out of the open door to the Herald’s Rest. It was dark, but the sounds of celebration inside were loud. He knew he was welcome; would be haled by the Chargers with a roar, a slosh of raised drinks. But still, he hesitated.

The amber syrup of candlelight was warm and inviting, but it also meant he would have to face the Iron Bull. And he and Bull hadn’t been alone together since the cliff side. He didn’t want the first reunion to be quite so public. He turned to go.

“Dorian!”

Dorian turned, knowing even before his body had started moving, that the voice wasn’t Bull’s. It was Cole.

“Hello,” he said politely.

“Hello. Are you leaving?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“The Iron Bull wanted me to give you a message.”

“He did, did he?” Dorian was amused that Bull had seen a glimpse of him from his perpetual vantage, able to see even out of the door.

“Yes.”

“All right then. What does he say? Does he want me to come in?”

“No. He said you can come in if you wish. But that he’ll meet you on the battlements tomorrow morning, after a meeting with the Inquisitor.”

“Oh.”

“And he said to drink this.”

“Drink –“

Cole passed him a small vial of clear liquid.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Thanks.”

Cole beamed. “You’re welcome,” and popped out.

Dorian wandered out of the light drenched grass to lean against the stonework. He examined the vial. It was clear, the liquid inside an amber brown. There was enough for one swallow.

 _Could be poison_ a practical voice in his mind whispered.

He unstoppered the bottle and downed it without giving credence to the rest of the thought. Bull wouldn't poison him. The swallow tasted repugnant. Something very like a syrup used in Tevinter to induce vomiting in dogs and small boys who drank something they shouldn’t. He very nearly retched, but held a hand in front of his mouth and breathed hard through his nostrils.

He didn’t feel any different.

Dorian made his way back to his quarters with something like vague disappointment. Of course it would be ludicrous to expect Iron Bull to abandon his entire family for only Dorian. But he had rather hoped Bull, realizing Dorian was lingering outside, might suddenly appear, press him against the cold wall and kiss him senseless.

Dorian kept monitoring himself for any ill effects from the vial before he fell asleep, but then sleep crept on him unexpectedly. He awoke to daylight with a feeling of panic. He needed to be on the battlements. Cole had told him no set time, but-“

He got dressed, hurrying but still taking care with his appearance. He lined his eyes, tinted his eyelashes, gelled his mustache. He made sure to wash with the citrus scrub Bull liked, even feeling foolish as he did it.

It was midmorning when he rushed out his door and along the open walkway circling the courtyard. He followed it to a flight of stairs up, turned left towards Cullen’s office, and then stopped, breathless, seeing the Iron Bull and Trevelyan talking quietly. He tried to melt inconspicuously against a wall, but a flick from Bull’s bright blue eye over the distance let him know the qunari knew he was there.

Bull’s face changed for the slightest instant to one of surprise before he turned and grabbed a scout in Inquisition garb and broke his neck so quickly, so seamlessly it was a moment before Dorian realized there was a second attacker, slashing over Bull’s already burned chest with knives. Bull threw him off the parapet as Dorian finally found his wits. A third man, near Dorian, was turning, a blowgun to his lips.

Without conscious thought, the man incinerated like a torch. There was a brief scream of agony before Dorian willed the mine to ignite, blowing bits of him over the wall.

Bull glanced at him again, then at Trevelyan, who was still standing stunned and immobile.

“What-“ she managed.

“The Qun,” said Bull calmly.

“Should we-“ Trevelyan gathered herself, cinching her ponytail. “Should we retaliate?”

The Iron Bull’s face split into a grateful grin. “Nah. They probably won’t send more.”

“ _Probably?_ ” Dorian asked, annoyed.

“Not now. Not in the Inquisition camps. Maybe if I’m back out there. Less protected. But here? Two guys? That’s not a threat. That’s a formality.”

“Three.”

“Fine, three. I could have handled all of them.” No modesty, but no lie.

“What if the blades were poisoned?” Trevelyan asked worriedly.

“Oh the blades were _definitely_ poisoned. A slick one too. Puke your guts up literally. I’ve been dosing myself with the antidote since the Storm Coast.”

“How did you know they’d use that poison?” asked Dorian.

“I didn’t.” Bull grinned. “Been drinking cocktails of all the antidotes.”

Dorian nodded; he understood what Bull had given him last night. The fact Bull was worried they’d come after Dorian spoke volumes about what Bull hadn’t said in his letters to the Qun.

“Bull, are you –“ Trevelyan was still deeply shaken. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah boss, I’m good.” When he said it, Dorian reached a hand for Trevelyan’s shoulder. She jumped, but then leaned into the contact gratefully.

“I-“

“See, this is the problem. Your face. Your expressions. We train for years in how to hide and detect microexpressions. You don’t have to feel sorry for me.”

Trevelyan paused, and both Dorian and Bull watched as she pulled calm back over her face. “You know –“ Trevelyan was never good at the mushy stuff, and she stumbled gracelessly, social training be damned. “You know you’ll always have a home here. A job too I mean, and-“

“I know,” said Bull. “Thanks boss.”

Trevelyan glanced between them, then at the mess. “I’ll go tell Leliana what happened. She’ll send someone to clean this up.”

“We’ll be around,” Bull said vaguely.

Dorian smiled and let Bull pull him down the walk to one of the ruined towers. He followed Bull inside as his eye roved the small space. Someone had put a bed in here, and Dorian was fairly certain Bull had either maneuvered it himself (impressive but massively difficult), or he had directed Cole to place it.

“I know you don’t like being in the Rest,” said Bull, his voice low behind Dorian’s ear. “I thought we could talk.”

“Talk,” said Dorian lightly. “So I see.”

“I can get a table and chairs in here if you’d prefer.”

Dorian sighed, but walked across the debris strewn floor to the bed and sank on the edge of it. He expected musty clouds to float up from it, but instead the sheets smelled clean.

Bull sat beside him and Dorian braced himself. He wasn’t sure what for. For Bull to tumble him on the bed. For Bull to yell at him. For Bull to pull at his clothes, pin his wrists. Dorian felt something like burgeoning panic but tried not to show it.

He felt a very slow finger running under the length of his jaw. Mulishly, he refused to turn it until Bull tilted his head up and back, forcing Dorian to stare at the way the shafts of light through broken bits of stone haloed Bull’s horns.

“You are enough,” said Bull simply.

“What?”

“What you said on the cliff. If I were to jump. That you would have caught me. That you would have given your life for mine. Earlier, that you’d suffer anything for me. And you stand there and beg me adding names to the list as if all you were was only an addition. Only a weight.”

Dorian felt something prickle in his eyes and he tried to look away, tried to yank his chin free, but Bull’s grasp was firm, a thumb coming up along Dorian’s chin to brush the lip the way the Iron Bull first had when Dorian had split it.

“You didn’t have to tell me the rest of it. Even if the Qun was gone. Even if the Chargers were. You would have been enough.”

Suddenly Dorian was shaking his head, panicking. “No, I’m not,” he tried to explain. “I’m not enough. You shouldn’t let go of the other things you should-“

“I’m not letting go, Dorian. I’m not sawing off the links to life to hang on you with the weight.”

Dorian closed his eyes. “I didn’t mean – I’m sorry.”

“But you did catch me.”

“What?”

“You’re winning.”

“I don’t like this game anymore.”

“Yeah,” said Bull, his voice smiling so much that Dorian opened his eyes to catch it as it disappeared under the eye patch. “Me neither. I’m a sore loser.”

“So it would seem.”

“I guess I didn’t realize how clumsy I’d gotten.”

“Not your fault,” said Dorian, finally using his hands to detangle himself from Bull, rubbing the burning place where his fingers had been. “How are the burns?”

“What?”

“On your chest?”

“Oh, the poultice helped. Thanks.”

“Of course.”

A tense silence.

“Dorian.”

Just as Dorian said: “You don’t have to-“

“Don’t have to what?”

“No, it’s okay you go first.”

“Don’t have to…”

Dorian sighed gustily. “You don’t have to thank me. You don’t have to feel _indebted_ because of this stupid catching game or because I said I loved you. I understand we’ve got a limited time. You’re right in that we should minimize the damage.”

“Did I say that?”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Dorian?”

“What.”

“It’s okay to be scared.”

“I’m not scared,” snapped Dorian, and then made a face at how Bull’s face had softened. “Also, what do you care? You hate talking about feelings. Trevelyan hit you in the stomach with a bat after the Fade. Pain focuses or whatever. If I ask if you’re alright you just try to tousle my hair and tell me to shut up.”

“It’s the hair thing that gets you, huh?”

“I work very hard on the look to have it so easily ruined.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll touch something else.”

Dorian rolled his eyes, even as he smiled inwardly. If Bull didn’t want to talk feelings that was fine by him.

“But I do think we should just lay the ground rules.”

“Fuck. I thought you’d be done with this already.”

“Look, we did the same thing for sex. Makes sense.”

“I don’t,” began Dorian, then forced himself to be silent. _I don’t want to_ was childish just because he feared Bull was about to break his heart. Bull had been through a lot. The least he could do was listen.

“I don’t talk about that stuff because I don’t think it matters,” said Bull practicably. “What matters is…hmm…what I do. How I treat people.”

“You’re a good captain,” Dorian told him honestly. “They-“

“I’ve been caught up in how _I_ think of things.”

Dorian stopped talking. It was rare for Bull to interrupt except in drunken bragging sessions.

“I didn’t think how this might be hard for you.”

“Hard, ha.”

But Bull only half smiled. “Do you remember the night in the forest?”

Dorian had to look away to master himself. So it came down to it then. He cleared his throat. “Of course.” He tried for light but it came out heavy.

“Do you remember what I said to you?”

“No.”

“ _Kadan_.”

“Oh.” Dorian did remember. “Yes. I meant to ask you. What does it mean?”

“It means,” Bull hesitated. “My heart.”

Dorian felt his eyes and cheeks and face and heart growing hot. He made a fist, hoping to cover his mouth, but Bull caught it in his own. They could both feel it trembling.

“I loved you before I knew what love was. When the only words I had for it was _my own. My heart.”_

Dorian shook his head. Wanted to explain how impossible it was. That of course _he,_ Dorian, had been foolish enough to fall in love with a qunari, mostly out of curiosity and maybe out of spite and then – and then – Bull had been in the Qun. It was always doomed to failure. The wide-open possibilities now dizzied him. Made it too real.

“What’s going to happen with us?” Dorian asked, his lips numb like he was suddenly, incredibly, incomprehensibly drunk.

“Well, first I’m probably going to roll you up in this bed,” said Bull with a cheeky smile. “And play with you for hours. And then we’ll get lunch. And then we’ll probably have to talk to Red about the mess on the battlements.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you say to me? That there’s only the next bit? And the next after that?”

“Ugh, I’m so annoying.”

“A real brat, I’d say,” purred Bull into Dorian’s ear.

Dorian laughed unwillingly, yanking his ear to his shoulder, and then Bull’s hand was on his neck, careful he didn’t hurt himself.

“How’s the head?”

“Fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

The Iron Bull smiled and pulled Dorian’s hips closer on the bed so that he slid into Bull’s warm skin. He held him there, with Dorian’s head against his chest. Dorian wondered if Bull’s heart was steady. If this was the pace it normally went, or if he was just as nervous as Dorian.

“What are you thinking about?” Bull asked softly.

“How I want to do this every day until I know the sound better than my own.”

Bull swallowed, the sound loud in Dorian’s ear, but then said huskily. “That’s not hard, knowing something better than Dorian Pavus’ own heart.”

Dorian turned his face up, scrunching his nose. “That’s Lord Pavus, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh?” Bull cocked an eyebrow. “And what am I then, a courtesan?”

Dorian hesitated, a glimmer of a smile playing around his mouth. “A gentleman of the bedchamber,” he decided at last. “That would shock the most people at court, I think. No made up title. Just a descriptor.”

“Okay then,” said Bull, and his arm around Dorian’s waist prepared him for the way Bull tilted them both back, tumbling them with a practiced ease from long repetition.

Dorian smiled into the space between he and Iron Bull’s noses. Bull’s nose was crooked and knotted from being broken so many times, but Dorian bumped it fondly with his own until Bull’s lips found his.

“A year ago, I hadn’t met you,” Dorian murmured, stroking the steep scars of Bull’s forehead with a feather light touch. ”How strange.”

“Yesterday,” Bull began, then fell silent.

Dorian kissed him.

It was a few seconds before Bull responded to Dorian’s quick tongue, his eager mouth, but then he came alive, growling low in his throat and scenting along Dorian’s neck. He groaned, and Dorian smiled smugly against Bull’s throat, congratulating himself on being clever.

Dorian’s top hit the floor in seconds as he toed off his boots, Bull doing the same.

“What do you need?”

“Need?”

“Yeah.” And Bull rippled his hips into Dorian with a self-satisfied grin. “Need.”

“I-“

“You better not say _nothing_ or what am I around for?”

“I need you.” Dorian said it honestly, slightly too raw for his usual jesting. “I need to know you’re _here_. And you want to be here.”

Bull stopped his skimming hands for a moment, staring down at Dorian’s face. Very gently he brought one up to Dorian’s hair again, the gesture unmistakably reminiscent of the night in Emprise du Lion. “ _Kadan_. This is where I need to be.”

“Need?”

“Yeah.” Bull’s smile was slow and warm. “You gonna make me say it?”

“It would be nice.”

“Tough,” Bull chuckled, and then kissed him, pulling Dorian’s seeking mouth after him until Dorian’s throat was long and tight, shivering and drawing goosebumps as Bull brought a careful finger down it.

Dorian felt his body tense beneath Bull’s sudden weight and Bull smiled against his face. “Already?”

Dorian nodded. “I-“ he tried to say, cleared his throat. “The night in the forest.”

Bull stopped stroking across Dorian’s bare torso with the knuckles of one hand. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I know.”

Dorian curled his hand up behind the Iron Bull’s neck. “Kiss me,” he said instead of the three words burning behind his lips.

The Iron Bull complied.

Bull took his time working down Dorian’s arching body with his tongue. He pulled off Dorian’s pants with a chuckle, then twisted them together into a makeshift rope. “Hands or feet?”

“Hmm,” said Dorian, but Bull was already moving, already twisting around his ankles, holding his legs pressed closed. “You’d better not stretch those.”

“I’ll buy you new ones.”

“You will, will you?”

The Iron Bull didn’t respond, only shirked his pants and crawled naked and heavy up the bed beside Dorian. “I want you to remember this,” he murmured, tracing lazy circles with a nail around Dorian’s nipple.

Dorian flexed against the sheets, a sound under his breath.

“And I’m going to challenge myself.”

“Challenge yourself.”

“Make you come untouched.”

Dorian used his free hands to grab both of Bull’s horns, arching off the bed in lust and anger and disbelief as he kissed him furiously. “You will not.”

“Hmm. You’re already riled up. High emotion does that.”

“Fuck you.”

“What? Just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I don’t know about it. It’s something that-“ _we learned in the Qun_ hung between them, but Bull smiled a crooked smile. “I know it,” he ended simply.

“I won’t let you,” said Dorian stubbornly.

“And why not?”

“Pride.”

“Think I can’t?”

“More afraid you can, actually.”

“Because I definitely can.”

“Fine. But –“

“ _Katoh._ Yes, you should. If you really –“

“I –“ _love you_ almost slipped out. It seemed a bad time to say it again. “I’m ready.”

Bull started with Dorian’s mouth, carefully tracing behind teeth with his tongue, exploring the shell of Dorian’s ear with the tip and filthy words, brushing his own shaft against Dorian’s eager lips, his hands grasping. When they grew too desperate, or strayed towards his stomach, Bull easily held him down. Dorian’s hips pushed into the bed.

Bull moved to his chest, tracing marks into his skin, nipping playfully as Dorian grew hard against his thigh, feeling the air cool beneath as he curved upwards with thrusts of his hips.

“You’re so beautiful,” breathed Bull, as he paused to watch Dorian’s heartbeat fluttering through the base of his stomach. He kissed the spot and Dorian keened, arching into the contact.

“What – about – you – “ he hissed as Bull easily pushed his bound legs up to his chest and slithered down the bed, holding his knees up over his horns.

“We’ll get there,” Bull promised, and then his tongue was circling Dorian, spiraling ever tighter as his knees spasmed in their bindings and Bull chuckled as he bucked his head under Dorian's legs. He pressed handprints to the underside of Dorian’s thighs, automatically shifting his grip to align with the bruises left on Dorian’s skin.

Dorian gasped at the intimacy. The memory.

Then Bull’s tongue was pressing into him, hot and wet and obscene. Dorian strained against the bindings, trying to force his legs open, but his hips only flexed and he grunted with the effort. He felt more than heard the chuckle of hot breath on his skin.

Bull began scratching gently with one maddening fingernail, tracing faint lines up and down Dorian’s thighs as his tongue lapped at him. Dorian squirmed away from the contact, trying to direct it where he wanted and finally Bull pressed on the rim and Dorian grunted a quick, high huff while his body jerked.

Bull slipped the finger in, stroking down with even but firm pressure so that Dorian was straining to push his spine deeper and deeper into the bed trying to angle the finger towards the very top, to the throbbing center of him. Instead of complying, Bull pulled carefully out. Without warning, he poured a small vial of oil down Dorian’s lap, soaking his thighs and sheets as Bull massaged circles into his skin, up the crack of him, pushing a fingertip in and out while Dorian fought his restraints. A second finger joined the first and Dorian let out a burst of air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Breathe,” Bull reminded him, amusement lacing his voice.

Dorian didn’t dignify it with an answer.

When the third finger pressed in, Dorian flexed against it. Bull’s other hand rubbed his stomach, and Dorian whimpered of the sensation of Bull reaching _through_ him.

“Breathe. You’re tight because of the restraints, but you can, I promise.”

Dorian forced himself to breathe out and the third of Bull’s fingers slipped in. His breath stuttered, hips jerking. Bull slowly pulled in and out, not quite touching Dorian’s prostate and definitely not close enough to his cock to take the prickling edge from the trickle of precum smearing his stomach.

Bull finally removed his fingers and Dorian held his breath. Bull slapped his ass smartly and Dorian jumped, taking another long breath.

“Good. That’s good.”

Dorian tried not to flush up under the praise, but Bull kissed the inside of one of his ankles and he lost the battle miserably.

“So responsive.”

“Are you-“

“Yeah. I was.”

“Fuck.”

“It’s what I’m going for.”

Dorian whimpered a laugh even as Bull pulled his bound legs up over one of his shoulders and lined himself up. Pushing into Dorian made him aware of every bone in his hips, the tilt of his shoulders. The blossoming pain mingled with indescribable pleasure. And then Bull was in, frozen in place, sweat standing out on his brow.

“Fuck,” said Bull, and his voice was very strained. “Fuck. You’re tighter…you’re more…”

“I’m okay,” said Dorian, his voice equally thready. “This better work. I – I need to-“

“I know. I’ll take care of you.”

The raw intimacy of the line had Dorian throwing back his head, eyes squeezed shut against the lights bursting behind his lids as Bull began to flex his hips, moving scant inches at first, then to hold Dorian’s leg in the crook of one arm, his other hand pulling Dorian’s thighs closer.

Dorian could feel pressure building in him. It wasn’t the usual pressure from the base of his spine pushing out of him. Instead it was a sun, coiling inside the pit of his stomach until he wasn’t sure how he would contain it. He gritted his teeth against the sensation.

“Please,” he managed in a whisper.

“Just hold on,” Bull grunted back, increasing his pace to a ferocity that made Dorian hiss out a long stream of Tevine profanities behind his teeth.

Bull even wasted breath to chuckle.

Dorian came with only a gasp, on an intake of breath that halted the flow of his words, that seemed to go on and on and he was confused at the sensations, confused at the hot wet feeling of him until he realized Bull had come too, that Dorian was still shivering around him.

Bull gently lowered Dorian’s legs, rolling onto his back with shuddering gasps then turned his head to one side to check on Dorian. He slapped a hand to Dorian’s stomach which caused Dorian to shrimp up with a gasp.

“Wh-“

“Breathe, _kadan_. I swear, most people can do this without thinking.”

Weakly, Dorian backhanded him, but let his hand rest where it fell across the broad chest, and the Iron Bull raised the inside of his wrist to his lips.

“Aren’t you going to take these off me?” Dorian asked peevishly, gesturing at his legs.

Satisfied, the Iron Bull pulled an arm back beneath his head, pulling up a knee as he watched Dorian lazily. “Nah.”

Dorian tried to reach his legs, failed, and finally sat up. He swayed, immediately dizzy, and was grateful for Bull's hand settling on the small of his back.

“Breathe,” Bull reminded him.

“Made me – wheeze for – you,” Dorian smiled tiredly.

The Iron Bull’s smug grin grew wider.

Dorian sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over, working at the knots with tired fingers.

The door to the rampart banged open and he glanced up, instinctively curled over.

“Dorian what were you –“

“Oh! My!”

“Fuck.”

Cassandra, Josephine, and Cullen had burst in.

“What on earth,” Cassandra fumed, as if she hadn’t been there on the Dragon Day.

“I…I can’t feel my legs,” Josephine mumbled politely, her clipboard hanging limply from one hand.

Dorian checked over his shoulder. Bull hadn’t bothered changing position, only now his face was practically split in a self-satisfied haze.

“I – ah- fuck,” Cullen managed eloquently. “Sorry. Sorry, both of you – er.”

“What are you doing here?” Dorian asked waspishly, forced to peer up under his eyebrows from where he was untying bound legs.

“Ah…” Cassandra was pushing a stunned Cullen behind her. Cullen was arching his neck towards the ceiling so much that his burning red ears looked like fruit against his black stole. “Cole told us where you were.”

“And did he tell-“

“No. Obviously not.”

Dorian smiled insouciantly. “Is there something you need help with?”

“I…ah…I…” stammered Josephine. “I wasn’t aware that…that you two…”

“For heaven’s sake, Dorian, put your pants on,” snapped Cassandra.

“I’m _trying_ ,” Dorian complained, and Cullen walked face first into a wall trying to sidle out the door.

Dorian glared over his shoulder. “A little help?”

The Iron Bull only sucked in his bottom lip lasciviously. “Nah.”

“ _Nah?_ You moronic piece of shit-“

“…flings are all very well and – I mean, you said yourself you aren’t a saint – but – really I must protest that – “

“It’s not a fling,” said Dorian, with a triumphant tug on the knot freeing the pants. He sat up in satisfaction, then hunched back down at the furious look from Cassandra and the mortified one from Josephine. He could only imagine the state of his stomach right now.

“Oh,” squeaked Josephine. “I see.”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Fine, for all of you, I love the Iron Bull. We aren’t just fucking. We’re in a relationship.”

“Shut the door on your way out,” Bull called politely to Cullen, who was trying to feel his way to freedom with a gloved hand, the other clamped over his eyes.

“Bull, is this true?” asked Cassandra.

Bull ponderously sat up, then surprised Dorian by yanking him backwards around the middle and buyring his face in Dorian’s neck.

“Yeah,” he said happily. “Seems I caught myself a mage.”

“Oh you _cheat_.” He turned around in Bull’s grip, ignoring the affronted gasp of Cassandra, the quickly snapping door pulled by Josephine. “You’ll have to try harder than _that_ to get your score up.”

“ _Kadan_. We’re just getting started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoa y'all must think i'm some sort of MONSTER with these multiple comments voicing fear I'd kill the Chargers. Even in my current playthrough playing the worst of all my Inquisitors who makes ALL The asshole choices who LOVES the Chantry and the Templars and the Circles - even THEN I couldn't kill the Chargers for a dumb boat. Plus I saw on Reddit you have to kill Bull in Trespasser if you keep him loyal to the Qun and I'm like???? murder found family for naval dominance what kind of dystopic bullshit is this. anyway yeah there was never any danger of that and i'll probably blanket statement say i would never write that nor a sad ending fic. though i have been accused of sad fics for angst but hey i write what i love. hurt and a big helping of comfort. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Literally all reviews go in a special folder I read when I'm sad. Thanks guys <3


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